Dive Brief:
- SEKO Logistics secured its first robotics partnership with plans to "scale-up" warehouse operations using GreyOrange's Ranger Assist Bots, David Emerson, global senior vice president of SEKO e-commerce, told Supply Chain Dive in an email.
- In stage 1 of the plan, SEKO will implement 15 bots in one of its Milton Keynes, UK locations. Another 35 bots are set to be installed early next year. “Once successful in this site we would look to continue to grow the number of bots across our real estate portfolio where it makes sense,” Emerson said.
- The logistics firm has plans to expand the bot initiative outside of the UK next year, with the first location slated to be the Netherlands. Emerson noted that SEKO is looking at the U.S. for future bot deployment, but has no confirmed plans yet.
Dive Insight:
In 2022, multiple robotics partnerships took place. In September, UNFI announced it would work with Symbotic and DHL Supply Chain debuted a partnership with Locus Robotics. Both partnerships were aimed at using autonomous robots to improve fulfillment capacity and reduce costs.
As part of the SEKO and GreyOrange partnership, the robotics company will deploy its GreyMatter fulfillment orchestration platform. The technology will assign work activities to the warehouse robots to maximize productivity, speed, accuracy and safety, according to press release from GreyOrange.
SEKO will install the bots first in only its e-commerce locations, but expects to expand their use to wholesale and retail operations.
GreyOrange will work with Zebra Fetch Robotics for the procurement of the Ranger Assist bots. The autonomous robots are known for supporting e-commerce fulfillment and wholesale picking workflows, which include batch picking, according to the release.
“In our industry, building a scalable logistics solution to meet the ever-changing demand cycles, whilst controlling an increasing cost base, is critical in our customer offering,” Paul Lockwood, group managing director for UK&I at SEKO, said in a statement.
