Sapient Automation Introduces New Carousel and Scissor Lift System

Sapient Automation has introduced the Hornet Horizontal Carousel and scissor lift system as a cost effective way to automate storage and retrieval operations. The system is touted to optimize ceiling heights up to 25 feet, saving an alleged 75 percent of the available floor space while reducing labor by two thirds and improving accuracy to almost 100 percent.


The Hornet is comprised of a series of bins with shelves that rotate around a horizontal track, delivering stored items to an operator driven via inventory management software. An integrated pick-to-light device directs the operator’s actions, and is intended to improve picking accuracy and productivity. A scissor lift workstation platform is used to move the operator from the floor to top position for ergonomic order picking.


Two to four Hornet Horizontal Carousels are integrated into one workstation called a pod. The carousels can be triple stacked or tiered to maximize a vertical cube of up to 25 feet. A scissor lift raises and lowers the operator so s/he can reach all the bins and shelves. The scissor lift workstation is equipped with lights that allow the operator to batch pick (pick items up in batches) from the carousels and place the correct items and quantities in the proper order. The pods are integrated with conveyor or carts to move orders to their next destination.


Sapient’s XPress Pix Inventory Control Software downloads a wave of orders from the host server. The software creates optimized batches from the wave and queues the carousels for picking. The XPress Pix software automatically creates pick bands, or ergonomic height zones, within the pod of carousels. Pick banding is designed to allow operators to move only once up and down the pods pick faces with only one stop per band, improving ergonomics by creating bands which eliminate reaching and stretching. This not only improves ergonomics, but increases throughput and operator productivity while reducing operator fatigue, claims Sapient.


Based in Hatfield, Pa., Sapient Automation provides automated storage and retrieval systems designed to increase profitability by reducing floor space, inventory and labor requirements while increasing accuracy, ergonomics and throughput performance.