I first talked to Tom Galluzzo, the founder and CEO of IAM Robotics, nearly 6 years ago on July 15, 2014. He was the first founder of an early-stage startup that I had the chance to speak to. We wouldn’t meet for the first time for another eight months at the 2015 Promat. Early stage may have been an understatement. While the company had been founded in 2012 by Galluzzo and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center, in the summer of 2014, it was largely a PowerPoint presentation on his laptop in the summer of 2014. I’m…
“You’re not buying automation, you’re buying confidence in throughput.” Yaro Tenzer, co-founder, RightHand Robotics A few Modex’s ago, I wrote a column titled It’s All About The Software, a theme I repeated following Promat 2015. It could be that I’m just not that imaginative a guy, or, the proverbial dog stuck on a bone. But at Modex 2020, I was struck once again by just how software is driving our industry today. It was especially true talking to robotics solutions providers. On the first day of the show, for instance, I stopped by 6 River Systems’ booth to learn about…
In the spring of 2016, I drove to Devens, Mass., to see something truly new in the post-Kiva era: Autonomous mobile robots in a production setting at a Quiet Logistics e-fulfillment distribution center. Locus Robotics, the startup company founded by Bruce Welty and Mike Johnson, was still more concept than commercial product, but even then, Welty envisioned a multi-billion-dollar business for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in the warehouse. A little over a year later, I had the opportunity to watch another first: a mobile piece-picking robot from IAM Robotics at work at Rochester Drug’s distribution center in New York. While…
Here’s a fact for you: At present, Amazon employs more than 400,000 full and part-time associates worldwide across a network of 110 North American and another 75 around the globe. So, given that the shortage of logistics workers is a top topic at every industry event I attend, just what is Amazon doing to win the war on talent, given the scale of its operations. That’s a question I posed to spokesperson Todd Walker at the end of our recent tour of Amazon’s highly-automated robotic fulfillment center in North Haven, Connecticut. The short answer is that Amazon is investing in…
Amazon Robotic Fulfillment Center, North Haven, Connecticut Opened: June 2019 (watch video) Size: 855,000 square feet Dock Doors: 62 SKUs: 1 million + Throughput: 1 million + orders per day during peak Shifts: 2 10-hour shifts per day, with downtime for maintenance between shifts Employees: 2,500 full-time associates, each working 4 shifts per week Primary Material Handling Equipment: Goods-to-person picking on a four-level pick module enabled by Amazon Robotics; ten miles of conveyor and sortation; cubing and weighing, automatic labeling, spiral conveyors and trailer-loading conveyor Area of Coverage: The facility’s primary role is the fulfillment of Prime orders in southern…
In early December, a researcher asked me what were going to be the solutions driving the supply chain 20 years from now. To be honest, I didn’t have a clue. I think back to stories I was writing less than a decade ago, and none of them predicted the rise in robotics or the emergence of things like artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things. Then e-commerce fulfillment kicked into high gear, and we were all off to the races. But the question got me to thinking about what I’m going to be watching in the coming year, which is…
In today’s e-commerce world, fulfillment has as much to do with the design of the network as it does with what happens inside the facilities located along that network. In the best of circumstances, the two work hand-in-hand. What’s more, in a fast-changing industry, what you’re doing today is not nearly as important as positioning your company for where you need to be five years from now. In essence, that’s the strategy behind the redesign of Rakuten Super Logistics’ e-commerce fulfillment network here in the United States, as well as the adoption of autonomous mobile robots (inVia Robotics, inviarobotics.com) as…
RSL is in the process of building out a different kind of network, with a different style of fulfillment center. Receiving: RSL receives an advanced ship notification (ASN) for all incoming product. When it’s received (1) at the facility, it is counted twice and then scanned into RSL’s proprietary warehouse management system (WMS). Product is placed into the storage bins used in picking, and storage can be at the single bin level or at the pallet level. Putaway: Newly received product can be stored in a reserve storage location (2) or a pick location (3). The lowest storage locations within…
GEODIS Indianapolis, Ind. Size: 250,000 square feet Products: Apparel and fashion Stock Keeping Units: 30,000 Throughput: 20,000 units per day Shifts: 1 shift per day/7 days a week Read more about the GEODIS e-fulfillment center in the feature article from February 2019 Modern Material Handling Magazine. GEODIS is one of a handful of third-party logistics (3PLs) providers that have embraced mobile collaborative robots to improve throughput and productivity and create a better working environment for their employees. Here’s how they’re deployed. At the present, GEODIS is using the cobots only in the picking process. Picking begins when a wave of…
More than 6.5 million. That’s how many units GEODIS, the global third-party logistics (3PL) provider, had picked to a fleet of mobile collaborative robots (Locus Robotics, locusrobotics.com) as of mid-December 2018. 175 and counting. That’s the number of cobots GEODIS had deployed across its North American facilities as of that date. 2x. That’s the productivity improvements that GEODIS realized since it first deployed a fleet of 21 bots in a facility outside of Indianapolis in January 2018 following a three-month pilot, according to Alan McDonald, senior director of continuous improvement, and Kevin Stock, the senior vice president of engineering. From…
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never thought of 3PLs as innovators or early adopters of technology. Given the short-term nature of their contracts, the industry players focused on taking the fat out of processes and being great operators with conventional processes. Based on a few stories I’ve published in the last year or so, I think that’s changing. In Germany, for instance, Arvato SCM Solutions is utilizing pouch sortation and automated packaging technologies to optimize e-fulfillment and managing returns. GEODIS is utilizing mobile collaborative robots in its fulfillment operations. Last fall, DB Schenker announced that it is partnering…
DHL Supply Chain, a part of Deutsche Post DHL Group, announced plans to deploy emerging technologies in 350 of its 430 facilities in North American facilities and transportation control towers as part of a $300 million investment. Selected technologies will vary by customer needs, based on the outcomes of research and pilot programs completed by DHL’s internal innovation teams and collaboration with dozens of external innovators. The availability – and practical utilization – of these technologies is expected to help the diverse customer base including those addressing e-commerce and omnichannel challenges to minimize complexity, remove capacity constraints, and maximize service…