Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 6.60
…state of e-commerce and last-mile, how could it not? Amazon said it was on track to deliver 3.5 billion packages on its own in 2019, a staggering sum, considering where it was only a few years ago. And it is a number that is only going to grow as time goes on. Not to mention that UPS and FedEx continue to raise the stakes not only by their own internal standards but on a competitive level as well. On an inside the Beltway level, the state of infrastructure remains muddled, in flux, or whatever you want to call it, but…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 9.15
…and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that bring indoor autonomy.” Amazon Robotics is the leader that has driven growth in mobile robotics for the last 7 years since their acquisition of Kiva Systems. With an estimated 256,000 automated guided vehicles deployed to date, Amazon holds close to 50% of material handling robot market share and is broadening its portfolio of robot subtypes with autonomous mobile robots for transport and delivery. Other major automated guided vehicle (AGV) developers like Quicktron, JD.com, Geek, and Grey Orange are deploying thousands of robots yearly, while autonomous mobile robot (AMR) developers are just beginning to scale…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 3.60
…cost or delivery time. The dominance of companies like Amazon has pushed two-day shipping options to become standard in many cases. What the space faces next is a preference and competitive advantage of one-day or same-day shipping demands. And customers are willing to pay for it. Same-day shipping is a multi-billion-dollar opportunity that is expected to grow continuously through 2025 thanks to e-commerce offers and consumers being always connected to the Internet. Meeting this demand requires real-time inventory understanding throughout a supply chain, including options to turn almost any point in a supply chain to a distribution node. If an…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 3.32
…market space. The landscape was set on fire when Amazon acquired Kiva Systems for $775M in 2012, thereby leaving a gap on the market. Today, significant well-funded alternatives such as GeekPlus (389$M), GreyOrange (170$M), and HIK Vision ($6Bn revenue) have emerged, achieving promising and growing deployment figures. The number of start-ups has also increased, especially between 2015-2017. We forecast the annual unit sales to double within 6 years. Despite the large deployments already, we assess the real global inflection point to arrive around 2024. Indeed, our report forecasts that between 2020 and 2030, more than 1 million such robots will…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.31
…are also being used by large retailers such as Amazon, JD and Walmart to pack and sort items for warehouse automation. Automated guided vehicles (AGV) are now being deployed in warehouses as autonomous forklifts, carts and pallet movers. Recent developments like Shopify acquiring 6 River Systems for $450m and Teradyne acquiring AutoGuide Mobile Robots & Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) for $165m & $272M respectively are the outcomes behind this disruptive technology in the warehouses and logistics. Apart this, there have been some major M&A like KUKA (Midea Group) acquiring Swisslog, KION acquiring Dematic and Egemin, Toyota acquiring Vanderlande and Bastian…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.21
…bought up by the biggest e-commerce player of them all—Amazon. Today, dozens of vendors offer AMR solutions, and others offer piece-picking robotic arms. There are different AMR approaches, too. Some solutions follow a “goods-to-person” principle in which robots bring mobile shelf units filled with items to a workstations, while other AMRs meet up with human pickers in the aisles to guide them through a set of picks within a relatively dense section of the warehouse. In either case, the goal is to vastly reduce the amount of walking or “travel” that takes up much a warehouse associate’s day. Going forward,…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.27
…Fig. 1: The temi home robot combines advanced sensing, Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant technology, and AI-enabled facial and voice recognition to deliver a mobile smart home hub that promises to take human-machine interaction to a new level. Image courtesy of temi USA. Multiple Personalities One vision of this technology divides the robots into two types of systems: service robots and social robots. In both cases, these machines can be part of the drive toward greater automation in the home. Within the context of the smart home, service robots provide utility functions on behalf of their owners (Fig. 2). Current examples…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 4.39
…facilities in the region.” As logistics has changed and Amazon has raised consumer expectations for order processing time to the door, retailers have felt the pressure to maintain productivity and yet turn orders around within an hour or two of receipt, Cera explained. Vargo’s fulfillment solutions, including its leading-edge Warehouse Execution System (WES) software called COFE® (Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine), have enabled retailers to be successful in a very competitive market. Vargo offers complete fulfillment solutions for e-commerce, retail, wholesale and manufacturing clients. COFE®, its intelligent software, drives the fulfillment of many global retailers’ distribution centers across the country, including…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 6.01
…Director of Industrial IoT and Automation Technologies, Robotics for Amazon. “As AI, machine learning and computer vision become commonplace, Honeywell Robotics will create innovative, breakthrough technologies to help customers alleviate skilled labor shortages, reduce safety risks and eliminate inefficient tasks,” said Lui. “The use of technology – including advanced warehouse execution systems, 3D storage and sortation solutions to improve capacity and efficiency, and autonomous mobile robots – is just the start of the digital transformation in warehouses.” The establishment of the robotics center of excellence is the continuation of Honeywell’s technology transformation, putting significant investment in partnerships with software vendors,…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 3.92
…load of TVs. Another person told me that, recently, Amazon (of all companies) lost the mattress he ordered. The support agent admitted to it: “We're sorry but, unfortunately, we lost your mattress in our warehouse.” They wound up sending him a different one. Who knows what happened to the first one. Admittedly, it took more than just a few conversations to fully wrap my head around the problem - to understand how much money and resources modern warehouses spend trying to answer the same seemingly simple question every day: where is my stuff? Here are just a few of the…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 2.92
…Demand for Instant Fulfillment Thanks in large part to Amazon's ever-accelerating fulfillment speed, e-commerce has become a race to the front door. Same-day delivery for urban customers has become simply table stakes, and the bar is moving higher with even shorter delivery windows on offer. Customers are growing used to faster fulfillment, with close to half expecting delivery speeds to continue increasing, according to a recent survey.[9] As same-day delivery becomes too slow, retailers will strive to match the “30-minutes or free” standard that used to be a pizza delivery promise. If you could begin deliveries only blocks from your…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 5.26
…and Hamilton previously serving on the executive team of Amazon Robotics, which was formerly known as Kiva Systems. 6 River Systems offerings are in operations at more than 20 United States-, Canada-, and Europe-based facilities, where it fulfills millions of units per week for large shippers and logistics services partners, including Lockheed Martin, DHL, XPO Logistics, and Office Depot, among others. Shopify officials said 6 Rivers Systems is expected to generate $30 billion in annual billings in 2020. And they added that by bringing 6 Rivers Systems into the fold Shopify will gain a group of staffers with decades of…