AGV Solution Archives

Berkshire Grey, Inc., a leader in AI-enabled robotic solutions that automate supply chain processes, and Locus Robotics, a leader in Autonomous Mobile Robotics (AMR) for logistics and distribution warehouses, have announced their formal partnership with the unveiling of their combined solution that integrates the Berkshire Grey Robotic Shuttle Put Wall (BG RSPWi) with Locus Origin and Locus Vector bots. This innovative integrated solution deploys end-to-end robotic automation solutions for retail and eCommerce customers looking to maximize their supply chain productivity and throughput while addressing growing labour shortages.

Ongoing labour availability and inflation challenges continue to put growing pressures on supply chain and distribution frameworks. Retail and eCommerce businesses are strained to keep up with growing customer demands while managing the supply chain issues and keeping operational costs in control. Customers are demanding flexible and seamlessly integrated best of breed robotic automation solutions to address these challenges and deliver top-quality customer experiences.

“Partnering with Berkshire Grey allows our customers to reap the benefits of enterprise-level robotic automation across some of their most business-critical supply chain processes,” said Mike Johnson, President at Locus Robotics. “Berkshire Grey and Locus Robotics have been operating in the supply chain industry for many years now, and it’s great to see us join forces to deliver seamlessly integrated, proven, and impactful automation solutions that help our customers grow and succeed, now and into the future.”

Steve Johnson, President and COO at Berkshire Grey agreed saying, “We have seen a growing number of customers asking for solutions that they can deploy holistically versus piecemeal innovation. Locus Robotics has a distinct value proposition in enabling greater flexibility in the supply chain industry with their robotic automation solutions. Now with Locus Robotics, we believe we can take our combined solutions to a wider market.”

This new solution helps retailers and eCommerce businesses maximize their throughput by:
• Delivering a fast and packaged solution for order fulfilment and store replenishment
• Processing a wide range of SKUs, surpassing SKU coverage of other alternatives
• Enabling a fully-automated, end-to-end supply chain ecosystem
• Augmenting supply chain operations with optimized labour and costs

Berkshire Grey and Locus Robotics are also exploring the future integrations of Berkshire Grey’s Robotic Product Sortation (BG RPS), Robotic Shuttle Product Sortation (BG RSPS), Robotic Pick and Pack for eCommerce Auto-bagging (BG RPPi). With this end-to-end package of robotic solutions, businesses can fully automate their order fulfilment, auto-bagging and store replenishment processes while seeing immediate ROI and throughput improvements.

Berkshire Grey, Inc., (Nasdaq: BGRY) helps customers radically change the essential way they do business by delivering game-changing technology that combines AI and robotics to automate fulfilment, supply chain, and logistics operations. Berkshire Grey solutions are a fundamental engine of change that transform pick, pack, move, store, organize, and sort operations to deliver competitive advantage for enterprises serving today’s connected consumers. Berkshire Grey customers include Global 100 retailers and logistics service providers.

Locus Robotics is a leader in revolutionary, enterprise-level, warehouse automation solutions, incorporating powerful and intelligent autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) that operate collaboratively with human workers to dramatically improve product movement and productivity 2–3x. Named to the Inc. 500 two years in a row, and winning over 17 industry and technology awards, the Locus solution dramatically increases order fulfilment productivity, lowers operational costs, and improves workplace quality, safety, and ergonomics for workers. Supporting over 100+ of the world’s top brands and deployed at 250+ sites around the world, Locus Robotics enables retailers, 3PLs and specialty warehouses to efficiently meet and exceed the increasingly complex and demanding requirements of today’s fulfilment environments

BILA has removed the three biggest obstacles for getting an easy and quick start with an AGV solution for the automation of pallet transport. The solution is called Global AGV – an innovative solution that has been created through 30 years of practical know-how and technical experience with automation across branches and industries – and that is the main reason for its simplicity and user-friendliness.

Automation solution with quick installation

Three things prevent many industrial companies from automating logistics in their factories and warehouses; automation tends to be expensive, inconvenient, and incredibly time-consuming to implement self-driving forklifts. It doesn’t have to be that way. Not anymore. It is easy to automate A-B pallet transport regardless of company size or type with the adaptable Global AGV. The driverless forklift truck from BILA solves routine tasks and eliminates bottlenecks and production stops easily and efficiently. This frees up valuable resources for e.g. quality assurance.

LEGO Mindstorm, 50 standard blocks and extensive experience with automation

The biggest advantage of Global AGV is how simple and user-friendly it is. The reason behind its simplicity can be found in the parent company BILA A/S. As Scandinavia’s largest automation company, BILA has helped automate and innovate the internal logistics of many national and international companies for over 30 years. And it is the practical experience and technical know-how acquired over the years that form the foundation for Global AGV.

In other words, Global AGV was created out of integrated knowledge of automation, where we have taken the best of the best and gathered it in a simple and user-friendly system. “With countless installations and projects through the years – from single stand-alone products to large and complex projects – we understand the challenges the customer encounters in connection with an automation project. Successfully implementing automation is about looking at the company’s starting and ending point, and what needs to change in terms of mindset to reach the goal in the best way possible,” says Kim Rimer Andersen, Product Manager, Global AGV.

The result is a self-driving forklift truck with a LEGO Mindstorm-like setup: a drag and drop structure with more than 50 standard blocks that you can easily implement in the construction of flows and route combinations. You don’t need special skills nor PLC programmers when you install a Global AGV. A few days of employee-training is all you need.

“We have seen many solutions over the past few years but have not come across such a simple solution as the AGV, we have now chosen from Global AGV. The AGV was by far the preferable choice in a production like ours. The process of implementing the AGV solution has been easy to initiate. It is both easy to install and start up, which is a big advantage for us,” says Søren Kristensen, Factory Manager at Lantmännen Unibake.

Save 60%

AGV solutions are no longer reserved for large companies with huge budgets. With Global AGV, optimising internal transport is no longer a huge project, but something that can be implemented in less than a week – and even with a 60% saving on day-to-day performance. And Global AGV is the simplest stand-alone logistics solution on the market. The AGV is easy to install and can be operated by anyone. Thanks to the simple software and intuitive interface, it only takes a few days on average to install and commission the driverless forklift. Due to its flexibility, it can be modulated and adapted to your requirements, making it easy to integrate into your existing production environment.

For increased flexibility, the machine is equipped with dual-mode technology, which enables immediate switching between automatic and manual operation. All in all, the Global AGV is perfect in a dynamic production environment with many A-B pallet transports.

“The AGV solution is a good example of added value in the overall production flow. The self-driving truck basically takes care of itself and drives without problems on the well-defined routes from A to B. It’s easy, simple, and straightforward. We can easily change the driving route or other functions, so that the AGV solution can be adapted if, for example, it has to drive longer or stack in new ways,” says team leader Allan Poulsen from Arla Foods in Rødkærsbro.

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