Four Ways Safety Gates May Transform in Automated Warehouses
Guest Blog from Aaron Conway, President of Mezzanine Safeti-Gates, Inc. (MHI Member Company and ProGMA member)
Much of the buzz in the material handling industry over the last few years is focused on the rise of robotics, and it’s with good reason. Automation is changing the way material handling is being conducted. AGVs, robots, mechanical arms are taking over warehouse tasks humans have done for years. Humans will continue picking material from pallets and moving it throughout the facility alongside the robots and other automated technologies as they are implemented. The transition has already started and is poised to continue for the coming years.
This transition is likely to create many new hazards in material handling facilities, and safety will remain crucial. Facility safety managers will need to perform more safety audits and modify equipment as new technologies are added and process flows change. Automation will also present new opportunities, like equipping safety gates with inventory tracking capabilities.
As robotics adoption increases in 2026 and beyond, safety gates and protective guarding have an opportunity to play a key role as intelligent fall protection solutions—protecting people and products, while integrating with automation to help operations run more efficiently. Here are four of the opportunities; there will be many more.
Robotic Guarding
AS/RS systems are often different from facility to facility, and within the systems there may be unique instances where protective guarding is required. Most of these systems are semi-autonomous now, meaning there are people involved. These people working in and around the systems may be exposed to new hazards where they interact with the autonomous part of the facility. Safety gates that separate people from moving machines while still allowing the transfer of material are needed within these systems. Many safety gate models such as the Roly® from Mezzanine Safeti-Gates will work to separate people from the automated machines, as well the RobotGate which protects the automated vehicles from damage.
New Work Zones
On the ground level, more employees work in close proximity to many automated technologies, from vehicles to mobile robots. One reason is the rise of batch picking, which brings items to ground level workstations to be packaged into individual orders.
Batch picking and other applications often use technologies such as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), shuttles or forklift trucks to deposit pallets of material at the ground level, and then employees come in to the work zone to finalize orders or move the material to workstations. Safety is important in these new work zones at the ground level. Just like pallet drop zones on elevated work platforms, employees must be protected. At the ground level, it’s not from falls, but from traffic. Creating safe work zones around these areas is essential.
Inventory Tracking
With automation moving material through a facility faster than ever before, it’s imperative to ensure visibility of inventory levels. Safety gates can be equipped to track material as it enters pallet drop areas and work zones, giving a better view of inventory levels. Adding power operation and technology that is able to communicate with WMS software can provide those important inventory metrics without disrupting workflow.
Adaptive, Aware Safety Gates
As warehouses become more automated and connected, safety gates may evolve from passive barriers into active, aware systems. Rather than opening or closing based solely on human interaction, safety gates would communicate directly with robots, AMRs, and fleet management systems.
In highly automated facilities, automated vehicles and robots are programmed to inform the locations to visit and tasks to perform at each site. Safety gates could be equipped with intelligence that enabled it to read the vehicle schedules and operate accordingly. For example, given the information that there is an AMR scheduled to load a pallet drop zone at 9:15 a.m., the pallet drop gate could automatically open at 9:15 when the AMR approaches with a load, and close immediately after the transfer is complete.
These adaptive gates could also help manage mixed traffic environments. If a worker entered a shared zone, the safety gate system could signal nearby robots to slow down, stop, or take alternate routes. That communication and coordination may reduce congestion and improve safety without sacrificing throughput.
