ASICS America finds misplaced inventory 60% faster with Corvus One warehouse inventory drones

Corvus Robotics, a provider of physical AI robotic systems for logistics and warehousing operations, announced that ASICS America Corporation is running Corvus One autonomous inventory drones inside its Byhalia, Miss. distribution center.

The companies said that nightly flights of Corvus One have increased counting frequency 6x in two of the building's highest-risk storage areas, which are now counted monthly.

ASICS said that it is recovering misplaced inventory roughly 60% faster since the system went in and has redirected about 200 hours of monthly counting labor into inventory research and exception resolution.

ASICS America deployment yields operational impacts

Corvus Robotics said that the ASICS facility holds close to 3 million units, 2.3 million pairs of footwear and 700,000 pieces of apparel and accessories, across roughly 44,000 SKUs, all managed in a Manhattan Associates warehouse management system. Corvus said that the facility fills e-commerce orders and ships to wholesale accounts, along with ASICS full-price and outlet retail stores.

The companies said that Corvus One covers two storage profiles in the building: the singles area, where returned and single-pair product gets stored and picked, and case reserve. Both were counted twice a year under ASICS cycle count policy.

"If a unit went missing, we might not find it for six months," said Kyle Koestler, senior director of distribution and transportation at ASICS America Corporation. "That could be the last pair in the building for an order we've already taken, and then the customer gets a cancellation. With Corvus One, we’re cycle counting on a monthly basis so we can surface any errors sooner and ensure customer orders are delivered on time."

In a case study, the companies said the 200 hours a month that came out of manual counting went into work the inventory control team is better suited to, including inventory reconciliation in their packing operation, root cause research and special projects for the wholesale side of the business. In one three-month stretch, Corvus Robotics and ASICS America said that the drones surfaced 26 misplaced cases holding more than 200 pairs of shoes, product that would otherwise have stayed unavailable to customers until the next scheduled physical count.

Corvus Drones fly nightly

In both areas, Corvus Robotics and ASICS America said that the drone does two jobs on the same pass, reading every UPC and counting the boxes in each location. In the singles area, returns mean the same SKU can show up several times in one location, so a UPC read on its own can get attached to the wrong box. Counting the boxes gives ASICS a physical total to check the scans against. If the drone counts 10 boxes, it should come back with 10 UPC reads.

ASICS said that it schedules seven drone flights a night, starting around 7 p.m. The companies said that the very narrow aisles (VNA) where the drones fly are less than 6 feet wide, and Corvus One flies them using onboard computer vision and spatial reasoning, with no additional infrastructure anywhere in the building. The companies said an inventory associate reviews each flight the following morning and resolves most discrepancies from a desk, working off the video and images the drones capture of every location.

"A footwear distribution center carrying tens of thousands of SKUs across every channel is one of the more complex inventory environments in the industry," said Mohammed Kabir, co-founder and CEO of Corvus Robotics. "Operators like ASICS keep those buildings accurate, and that has always taken a lot of manual counting. Corvus One takes that work on autonomously, in the areas that see the most handling and tend to produce the most discrepancies, so orders ship on time and product sells at full price.”

ASICS said that it publishes availability feeds to online marketplaces, and before Corvus One, the team held back 12 to 15 units out of every 100 because the tail of the inventory chain carried fulfillment risk. The companies said that the product at the bottom of that tail never shows up on the marketplace, which leaves liquidation at a steep discount as the alternative. ASICS said that it now publishes the full feed and sells that product at full price.

Corvus Robotics and ASICS America added that taking those counts off the floor also means fewer hours of lift equipment running through the aisles, which feeds another ASICS priority. The company said that its Byhalia facility is LEED Silver certified and draws about half its power from an on-site solar array. ASICS counts the Corvus One deployment among the programs supporting its sustainability goals.