Help me do case study for this prompt:
Case Study 4-2 Automation at Southern Gla
Help me do case study for this prompt:
Case Study 4-2 Automation at Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits LLC
Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits LLC is the largest alcoholic-beverage distributor in the United States. Its 1.2 million-square-foot facility is the biggest liquor distribution warehouse in the world. Would you believe that it is located in Lakeland in central Florida—a metropolitan area that has been designated as the third most vulnerable to automation in the country? Southern Glazer was enticed to set up in Lakeland because of incentives offered by the state: cheap land in the area, three interstates relatively nearby, and moderately low wages. Prior to the Lakeland facility, it had five warehouses in Florida which it consolidated into the current mega-facility.
Much of the work in the facility is highly automated. Technologies include beverage distribution software to support 4-part order wave and automated order routing, pallet and case conveyor systems, voice-directed picking, five-level pick robotic modules, and a Human Machine Interface master control station. The highly automated system makes it possible to process 25.5 million cases a year (12,000 cases an hour), which represents a 22% increase over the number of cases processed before the integrated automation system was introduced.
Southern Glazer has been named a “Most Loved Workplace” by Newsweek. Its workforce is reported to include 368 warehouse workers and 392 delivery drivers. Many jobs require only a high school education. As is the case in automated warehouses around the globe, humans do the knowledge work or physical tasks that robots can’t do. Those physical tasks typically require a combination of speed, delicacy, and visual acuity such as when operating machinery in tight spaces.
Even though Southern Glazer laid off 20% of their total workforce when transitioning to the large Lakeland warehouse, it eventually rehired most of these workers as automation fueled the company’s growth. However, the jobs changed because of automation, according to Ron Flanary, the Senior Vice President of Southern Glazer’s National Operations. Employees now have to use their brains to manage the flow of goods through the system. Since warehouse operations currently are tightly integrated with automated inbound logistics and outbound supply chain systems, warehouse employees must use these advanced systems, for instance, to plan warehouse operations and to “chase the case” internally, which means figuring out where a particular inventory item of interest is sitting. Further, they need to adapt the system to fluctuations in consumer demand. For example, many customers who have limited storage space expect daily deliveries.
One warehouse job that many low-skilled workers are still performing is at the final “pick” station where single bottles are transferred from bins to shipping containers. This job is accomplished by humans but assisted by machines. Ironically, the only thing that keeps the humans from being replaced by machines is their manual dexterity—and not their minds. However, Mr. Flanary opined that “there will be a time when we have a ‘lights out’ warehouse, and cases will come in off trucks and nobody sees them again until they’re ready to be shipped to the customer. The technology is there. It’s just not quite cost-effective yet.”
Video: The automation is described in 5 minute video at World’s Largest Wine & Spirits Distribution Center Invests in Automation & Software − YouTube, Feb 1, 2019 (accessed April 20, 2023).
Sources: Christopher Mims, “Where Robots Will Soon Rule,” Wall Street Journal, February 9–10, 2019, B4; see also Bob Trebilcock, “Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits: Designed to Last,” Modern Materials Management, July 14, 2017, https://www.mmh.com/article/southern_glazers_wine_spirits_designed_to_last (accessed February 28, 2019); and Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits Lakeland, loda https://www.bastiansolutions.com/about/media-library/case-studies/food-beverage/southern-glazers-wine-spirits-lakeland-florida/ (accessed February 28, 2019); Bob Trebilcock, “Transforming Inbound Logistics, in Real Time,” Supply Chain Management Review, May 2, 2022, https://www.scmr.com/article/transforming_inbound_logistics_in_real_time (accessed April 24, 2023); Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, “Culture,” https://southernglazers.com/careers/culture (accessed August 9, 2023).
Discussion Questions
1. What do you think will happen to the low-skilled warehouse workers when the technology becomes more cost effective? What responsibility, if any, do you think that Southern Glazer managers have toward their workers who are displaced by automation and robots? Please explain.
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using highly automated systems like those used in Southern Glazer’s warehouses?
3. How do you think the workers would react to having robots as “coworkers?” If you think they might resist the robots, describe how you think they would do so.
4. What do you think humans actually do in the warehouses that the robots cannot do? Besides the example in this case of the “final pick,” what are the warehouse workers doing? Why don’t robots do that work in a cost-effective manner today?
Attached is file of Case Study Instruction, Chapter 4 reading which is relevant to the case study.
Please use at least 5 references as it mentioned on the instruction file. Here are some references link that I researched based on the case study, please use it if you think it relevant.
Case study peer review article
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/scholarly-journals/human-robot-interaction-when-investors-adjust/docview/2582849427/se-2?accountid=7107
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/scholarly-journals/digitalization-food-system-as-means-promote/docview/2822497757/se-2?accountid=7107
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/scholarly-journals/go-where-is-researchers-arent-researching/docview/2488113720/se-2?accountid=7107
http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/scholarly-journals/warehouse-automation-logistic-robotic-networks/docview/2918725380/se-2?accountid=7107