Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.75
September 10, 2018
…from Michael Kors, Canadian Tire, Geodis and a former Amazon and Walmart executive. Finding that key partner in the organization who can be a champion for the project remains elusive, as does getting the attention of senior decision makers. But, the labor issue came up in this session as well. Brock Eckles, director of strategic solutions for the 3PL Geodis, noted that a large consumer electronics company that is one of his clients has made a decision to invest heavily in automation because they can no longer fight the war over associates. Ron Kyslinger, a former Walmart SVP, argued that…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.13
September 07, 2018
…in robotics in their warehouses and distribution centers, with Amazon leading the way. Vision and computer guided robots are performing storage and handling activities such as loading, unloading, putaway and retrieval functions. Autonomous robots travel untethered among storage racks in a distribution center and move up and down aisles to stack and retrieve cases. They coordinate with more-conventional robots that perform simpler tasks to enable fulfilment. We’re even seeing camera-mounted drones being used to take inventory in the warehouse. Kroger, Walmart, Macy’s, Target and Coca-Cola are just a few leading companies that are testing and investing in the next generation…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 12.81
August 21, 2018
…reported by Rob Smith, National Retail Reporter, CoStar Group, Amazon, the online innovator that changed retailing, now has plans for a futuristic airborne fulfillment center where it would use drones to deliver goods. The e-commerce giant was granted a patent for the concept last month, and it has another pending for a vertical warehouse that looks more like a skyscraper than a distribution center. The cutting-edge ideas show how far developers may have to go to address the growing demand for industrial space as more Americans shop online. Already, the first multistory warehouses in the U.S. are scheduled to open…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.35
August 13, 2018
…commercial adoption than AMRs. Kiva, which was acquired by Amazon in 2013, was a pioneer of autonomous mobile robots for goods to man picking. The Kiva robots rely on people to unbox items and put them in bins on shelves that are later delivered to workers who pick products. Newer AMRs from companies like Locus Robotics can also travel to pick locations where they meet workers who pick and place items on the robots (robot-to-goods picking, as opposed to goods-to-man). The symbiotic relationship between workers and robots has given rise to a new term, collaborative robots or cobots. Cobots complement…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 4.85
August 02, 2018
…the scaling e-commerce market. “To compete with behemoths like Amazon, warehouse automation is critical for e-commerce companies; but the overhead cost of purchasing a fleet of robots is often beyond reach,” said Lior Elazary, founder and CEO of inVia Robotics. “We’re excited to have this funding to fuel the growth of our subscription-based RaaS technology to optimize warehouse performance and increase productivity for our customers.” The inVia Picker robot works collaboratively alongside human workers to completely eliminate the need for operators to walk around the warehouse. This allows human workers to concentrate on more complex tasks like picking and quality…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.68
July 13, 2018
…his production team “into a mystery room at the Amazon offices and revealed a secret R&D project: ‘Octocopter’ drones that will fly packages directly to your doorstep in 30 minutes.” Faster than you can say “same day delivery,” drones were the buzzword du jour at supply chain conferences, much like RFID following the infamous Walmart mandate about a decade earlier. Given the number of e-commerce deliveries every day in my neighborhood in a small town in New Hampshire, I sometimes imagined the sky blackened with Amazon drones, like a scene out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. And then? Well, at least…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.05
July 09, 2018
…a pioneer in goods-to-person robotics that was acquired by Amazon). “We are a drop-in replacement for cart picking that is a full-system solution,” explains Jerome Dubois, co-founder of 6 River Systems. “We not only do the transport, we are the pick station, we are the put-to-light, we are the scanner, and the aisle manager functions. Everything is contained within our robot.” 6 River’s software can integrate with a warehouse management system to get order information, and with that data, it figures out the most efficient work assignments for each robot or “Chuck” as they are called. The software then sends…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.81
July 09, 2018
…their bad habits.” Jindel adds that demographics, e-commerce and Amazon have permanently changed LTL market dynamics, which aren’t going back to the old days any time soon. “The LTL sector will continue to remain tight and favorable to carriers until autonomous vehicles are embraced by society and lawmakers,” he says. “Until then, it’s Christmas time for the LTL industry.” Indeed, LTL carriers can already hear Christmas bells ringing in data of their financial charts. Revenue per hundredweight jumped 3.7% year-over-year in the first quarter with tonnage up a whopping 4.7%. That would indicate a shifting of heavier freight shipments from…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.27
June 08, 2018
…and do it more efficiently than ever. Walmart and Amazon can afford to develop these capabilities internally. Other companies’ primary focus is on getting orders out the door. They need to bring knowledge, expertise and innovation from the outside to help them apply technologies and systems that optimize operations. We believe companies need to have a program in place that provides 10% classroom training, 20% coaching and mentoring and 70% experience-based learning. People have to be life-long students who continuously improve. The future of distribution depends on developing a talent pool that can apply decision science and technology to the…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.50
May 17, 2018
…at Kiva Systems before the company was sold to Amazon in 2012. “When we founded the company in 2015, we decided that innovation means nothing unless it brings value to the customer,” Dubois says. “So, we asked: What’s the application that can be improved in the warehouse and that was pick-to-cart? Ultimately, our ah-ha moment was that it’s really a labor and a training issue. We decided not to go after the picking arm and replace the human, but create a solution that integrates the transport vehicle, the scanner, the WMS system, put-to-light and conveyor into one system that leads…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.35
April 11, 2018
…training inexperienced or unskilled employees is costly. Companies like Amazon have used automated systems to reduce the time it takes to train employees, bringing new hires up to speed in as little as two days using technology like touch screens and robots. Adopting automated transportation solutions like robotic lift trucks can help simplify tasks reserved for employees. For example, in goods-to-operator fulfillment workflows, employees do not need to know the storage location for inventory required for each order; rather, they can focus on picking and packing orders as quickly as possible from the inventory brought to them by a robotic…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 18.28
February 09, 2018
As reported by The Verge, Amazon will finally launch its shipping service for businesses in Los Angeles in the “coming weeks,” according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The service, dubbed Shipping with Amazon or SWA, will directly compete with companies like United Parcel Service Inc. and Fed Ex Corp. However, it will be initially restricted to companies selling goods on Amazon’s own marketplace. No doubt executives at companies FedEx (NYSE: FDX) and UPS (NYSE: UPS) are no doubt waking up to frantic phone calls about what their industry might look like in five years. Read: Amazon's…
