Berkshire Grey rolls out new e-commerce fulfilment robots

AI-enabled robotic solutions specialist Berkshire Grey has launched a new generation of mobile robots as the e-commerce boom and soaring consumer expectations transform demands on e-commerce retail and logistics warehouse fulfilment operations.

According to the technology company, its new generation of Intelligent Enterprise Robotic (IER) picking and mobility solutions offers increased fulfilment throughput at a lower cost point to enable shorter delivery times and support a larger number of SKUs.

Unlike fixed conveyor belts and early generation mobile robots, Berkshire Grey’s intelligent fleets harness the power of AI to orchestrate tens to thousands of mobile robots to pick, organize, and deliver items for a wide variety of customer and store orders.

“We developed this next generation of IER solutions to achieve higher throughput at lower cost in a third of the deployment time,” explained Steve Johnson, President and COO.

“Berkshire Grey’s industrial-grade mobile robots work together at unprecedented scale to deliver a step-change in speed and intelligence for any fulfilment centre. Best of all, our software gets smarter over time, speeding efficiencies, while enabling maximum flexibility for businesses to meet rapidly changing consumer demands.”

Berkshire Grey explained that its AI-based orchestration software enables many robots to work together in a performant fashion, where robots improve and learn over time, and where the activities carried out by different robots and modules are coordinated.

With the new generation of mobile robots incorporated in these solutions, Berkshire Grey’s intelligent fleets of mobile robots can:

• Integrate robotic picking with mobile robots to increase automation levels and fulfillment speeds.
• Transform any facility into a high throughput fulfillment system with minimal disruption to existing operations. Facilities can deploy the new robot systems in both existing and new fulfillment centers in one-third of the time of legacy systems.
• Handle greater SKU coverage than legacy systems — including heavier items, non-conveyables, and challenging items like shrink-wrapped packages (e.g. dog food bags, glass, water bottle packs).
• Perform faster and more flexibly than traditional approaches — conducting agile any-induct-to-any-discharge organization of goods and incorporating intelligent on-field storage supporting many use cases.
• Dually utilize storage locations as robot highways and handle diverse SKUs directly — the new robots can rotate and adjust positions, pass under shelves and conveyor belts, and function without a tray or tote container — all of which enable speedier throughput and reduced process costs.

Berkshire Grey’s automated solutions are dynamically reconfigurable and available via Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) implementation models. RaaS allows customers to accelerate adoption of game-changing automation technology without upfront capital expenditures.

The US robotics company, founded in 2013, has expanded rapidly in recent months, including new subsidiaries in Canada and Japan, and has broadened its management team. In February, it announced a deal to go public later this year though a SPAC agreement with Revolution Acceleration Acquisition Corp (RAAC) that will value the combined company at $2.7 billion.