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The two-year-old taproom in Sterling, Va., brewed 1,500 barrels of beer in 2016, but you’d never know it by looking at their brewing kettles — they look brand new.

Brewers have captured micro-moments by experimenting with familiar seasonal flavors.

With a growing number of products in the marketplace and an evolving retail landscape, beverage warehouses are faced with a lot of work and a minimal amount of time and manpower to do it. As robotic technology becomes more accessible, it’s helping many manufacturers achieve their operations goals.

Voice-first technology continues to proliferate for consumers. However, beverage warehouses also have seen the benefits of utilizing voice technology as they tackle SKU proliferation within the beverage market.

Forklifts have long been a staple in beverage warehouses. Yet, demand for new, sustainable technologies, like electric lift trucks, as well as the incorporation of the right combination of slotting and storage strategies to increase capacity and picking efficiency are driving the market.

Although automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and automated guided carts (AGCs) have been in the market for more than 40 years, a renewed interest has emerged in “true robotic systems” that consistently and predictably transport loads of materials to places that might otherwise be serviced by manually driven forklift trucks, conveyors or manual cart transport, experts say. “Interest is soaring,” says Laura McConney, marketing coordinator at JBT Corp., Chalfont, Pa. “Customers no longer wonder whether they should install AGVs. They know they need them and just want to develop the best implementation plan. Customers are well beyond considering beta site testing and have moved onto enterprise-wide deployments.

Ranked among the leading mission-critical components, palletizers and depalletizers must incorporate safety, flexibility, speed and performance in order to keep operations humming along, experts say.