Warehouse robotics company Nomagic, applying general-purpose Physical AI to optimize warehouse operations, today announced a new ‘Shoebox Picker’ as part of its portfolio of solutions.
As a cutting-edge application of Physical AI, the Shoebox Picker is the AI perception and robot control system with an intelligent end of arm gripper designed for high-reliability handling of two-piece and unsealed shoeboxes. The Shoebox Picker’s powerful AI software analyzes specific characteristics of each shoebox including size, weight, lid type and orientation to predict the ideal movements for the pick task, then guides the arm gripper to execute the pick. This enable a secure process – even for unsealed shoeboxes with separating lids – without taping, crushing or losing the lid, allowing the solution to pick what is often considered unpickable.
In modern warehouses, handling shoeboxes is one of the hardest tasks to automate. In a typical fashion e-commerce warehouse, shoeboxes constitute approximately 20% of all items. For fulfillment centres specializing in footwear, this percentage is significantly higher.
With endless variations in size, weight, and lid type, shoeboxes can create a bottleneck that prevents a fully automated fashion workflow. Until now, all operations related to picking, packing, and sorting shoeboxes have been a manual process with standard robotic systems failing to achieve the same precision as the Nomagic solution.
The Shoebox Picker is first of its kind with its unique abilities to:
• Handle Two-Piece and Unsealed Boxes: It securely grasps boxes without requiring them to be taped or sealed, preventing lids from separating and contents from spilling.
• Manage Variation: It effectively handles a diverse mix of shoebox designs, accommodating different sizes, weights, and materials.
• Provide Multi-Orientation Capability: The system can pick shoeboxes placed both vertically and horizontally, a common state in dense warehouse storage.
The Shoebox Picker eliminates the need for items to be singled out or pre-oriented, a requirement that made automation impractical before. This enables the solution to achieve a throughput of up to 450 UPH for shoebox-only handling and up to 600 UPH for mixed bins, while covering more than 98% of shoebox SKUs currently available in the market.
Kacper Nowicki, co-founder and CEO of Nomagic comments: “The Shoebox Picker is a great example of the embodiment of Physical AI. It combines the intelligence of AI with a physical system to solve real-life physical problems. Automated shoebox handling is an immense challenge in logistics. The Shoebox Picker enables automation for this missing part of fashion logistics. I’m proud to see Nomagic pushing the boundaries of what is possible with Physical AI for intralogistics.”
In addition to footwear and apparel brands, the Shoebox Picker is especially advantageous for e-commerce fulfillment centres or third-party logistics providers that manage warehouses and fulfillment for fashion retailers as well as retailers and companies that use dark stores or micro-fulfillment centres to fulfill online orders.
The Shoebox Picker will premiere at LogiMAT (March 24-26) in Stuttgart, Germany at Nomagic’s Booth 1GA57 in Hall 1G.
