Locus picks 230m units during holiday peak

Locus Robotics, a leader in autonomous mobile robots (AMR) for fulfilment and distribution warehouses, announced that its LocusBots picked more than 230 million units during the peak holiday shopping period on behalf of its global retail and third-party logistics customers – more than doubling the total number of items picked in the same period in 2021.

“Despite early predictions of lowered volumes, Locus customers once again picked a record number of items using LocusBots during this critical holiday shopping period,” said Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics. “It is now clear that scalable, cost-efficient robotics automation is an operational must-have as volumes continue to increase and the labour shortages persist. Locus is proud to help our customers again meet the seasonal challenge with robust, enterprise-scale automation solutions that position them for success today and in the future.”

During this same period, LocusBots averaged 3.3 million units picked per day, representing a 2x increase over 2021.

A record $281bn online global sales took place from Thanksgiving Day (24th November) through Cyber Monday this year according to Salesforce.com and Adobe Analytics Data, with total US online sales over $68bn, representing a 9% increase over 2021.

Cyber Week 2022 continued several notable industry trends that first appeared in 2021:

• Retailers again started peak season earlier in an effort to mitigate supply chain concerns and ensure product availability
• Online shopping is now a central aspect of the retailers’ omnichannel shopping strategy as online spending increased 8.6%
• Mobile shopping continues to be a favourite, growing more than 15% over 2021

Locus reaches industry first

Locus recently reached an industry-first, its 1 billion pick milestone, reflecting the exponential growth of order fulfilment volume. By way of comparison, it took Locus 1,542 days to pick its first 100 million units and just 40 days for the most recent 100 million picks. Locus robots now average more than three million picks per day around the world. LocusBots have travelled more than 20 million miles in customers’ warehouses, the equivalent of more than 670 times around the Earth or 35 round trips to the Moon.

The Locus warehouse execution platform disrupts large-scale warehouse fulfilment and distribution with an industry-leading, intelligent, and dynamically scalable robotics-driven solution. Locus delivers 2X-3X productivity by seamlessly coordinating both human labour and AMRs to dramatically improve order fulfilment efficiency and workplace ergonomics, while lowering operational costs.

With more than 230 sites under contract around the world – some having as many as 500 LocusBots per site – the Locus solution efficiently and seamlessly orchestrates the operation and management of multiple robot form factors, and provides forward-looking, real-time business intelligence, critical for optimizing productivity, proactively managing labour, and managing costs.