Among the trends at this month’s Manifest supply chain and logistics event was an increasing focus on automation for cold chain environments. Challenges include worker safety and retention, space utilization, and the need for traceability and throughput to keep up with demand, according to Hy-Tek Intralogistics, which sponsored a “Cold Chain Experience” pavilion and stage in Las Vegas.
Robotics only recently entered refrigerated spaces because of power, humidity, and equipment cost concerns in comparison with ambient storage. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated automation, as food, beverage, and pharmaceutical companies and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) recognized the need to modernize cold chain operations.
“Case picking on the food and beverage side and unit picking on the pharma side have been very manual, but we’re starting to see strong interest in fulfillment automation,” said Ray DeMelfi, senior vice president of strategic services at Hy-Tek Intralogistics.
“We started to talk about cold chain automation 10 years ago, and it was crane-based retrieval, but you still had to have some kind of interface on the front side,” he told Automated Warehouse. “But with the evolution of robotics, we’re starting to get more granularity of picking. Cold chain is still lagging in adoption, but it’s accelerating.”
From MFCs to flexibility
During the pandemic, grocery retailers expressed interest in micro-fulfillment centers (MFCs), and while that didn’t take off, there is still interest in increasing flexibility, said DeMelfi.
“We found there’s a minimum threshold that you can’t go under from a cost standpoint,” he noted. “You can only make the system so small. We saw manufacturers say, ‘Let’s create a pre-engineered solution that we could stand up a little bit more economically,’ but that’s force-fitting a solution into an application.”
“Now, we’re starting to see a migration to more flexibility,” DeMelfi observed. “Manufacturers and integrators are going with RaaS [robotics-as-a-service] models, or they’re leveraging some finance partners to convert the capex [capital expenditure] to an opex [operating expense] situation so it becomes more achievable. I think there’s still going to be micro-fulfillment, but it’s going to take creativity to deploy.”
In addition, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) and some autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) no longer require a “perfect slab” or level flooring, allowing for brownfield deployments instead of having to build a cold-chain facility around automation, he said. Because of rising labor costs and turnover, businesses are more willing to investigate automation to increase brownfield utilization.
Hy-Tek defines cold chain needs first
Hy-Tek Intralogistics starts with a focus on customer requirements, asserted DeMelfi. The Columbus, Ohio-based integrator doesn’t make hardware, so it identifies customer needs and then finds technologies to meet them, he said.
“We’re intentionally agnostic,” DeMelfi said. “We have an R&D lab that’s near the Cincinnati airport where we look at all the different solutions in the industry and figure out the right portfolio for every application. The cold chain space is investing heavily, while there are other technologies that may not play well in that space.”
How can cold chain automation projects fail to deliver the expected return on investment (ROI)?
“In cold chains specifically, real estate within the four walls is always a challenge,” replied DeMelfi. “The cost to stand up and operate [automation] is just so high compared with ambient environments. A lot of times, we see hasty deployments of solutions to solve a pain that’s felt today instead of looking ahead maybe three to five years and developing a comprehensive plan.”
This can cause problems when SKU profiles change or increase, and operators get stuck with islands of automation, he said.
“Change management is vital for robotics adoption,” DeMelfi said. “Getting the operations team integrated early into the design and solutioning process helps. That way, they’re part of the solution rather than making decisions in silos, pushing solutions out to them, and giving excuses not to leverage them.”
Register now for the 2026 Robotics SummitTake an evolutionary approach to cold chain robotics
As offerings increase for mezzanines, multi-temperature zones, and goods-to-person (G2P) operations, cold chains should think about where automation can help first, said Hy-Tek Intralogistics.
“Anytime you can remove people from harsh environments, like on the dock, that’s going to be a high priority,” said DeMelfi. “We identify the core automation component and evolve from there. We find what works best from a deployment standpoint. If the cold chain comes from a very manual state, we can build around the core G2P infrastructure and add amplifying components upstream and downstream over time.”
“It’s an evolutionary approach as opposed to a revolutionary approach, where you’re dramatically changing a lot at once,” he noted. “We’re shifting labor to higher-value roles or better-environment roles.”
Hy-Tek offers a road map to modernization
Hy-Tek Intralogistics said it prefers to start at the network level and to develop a true strategy for adding automation. After thorough data analytics to grasp customer requirements, it recommends technologies based on enhancing ROI.
On the orchestration side, software and artificial intelligence promise more dynamic control over processes.
“Wave planning and manual intervention have existed for years and years, but AI can help dynamically control the processes,” DeMelfi said. “If the work profile is different, we can create more intelligent and fluid decision making on a day-to-day basis.”
“There are many solutions for cold chain, and some vendors overpromise, so it could be their first and last installation,” he concluded. “We work with our customers to continue to push things forward. The continuous improvement piece is especially important to Hy-Tek. The solution is never the endgame.”
