In October, Boston Dynamics Inc. announced the first use of its Stretch mobile case-handling robot in Europe with Otto Group. It also marked the first use of Stretch with the Spot quadruped robot at the same enterprise.
“Stretch really supports us in a very labor-intensive process in the warehouse,” said Tomek Pauer, a project manager in the Supply Chain Management arm of Otto Group, at the time. “The adaptability of Stretch to our boxes and our processes has been very impressive so far.”
Founded in 1949, the Otto Group is a €16 billion ($16.6 billion U.S.) conglomerate of 100 business units—including Bonprix, Crate and Barrel, and OTTO—across 30 countries. The company also operates a popular e-commerce platform in Germany, as well as Hermes, one of the largest parcel and delivery services in Europe.
Last year, the Otto Group announced that it planned to deploy Stretch in more than 20 facilities and Spot in more than 10 by 2025. It and Boston Dynamics said that the robots can be deployed in less than a week and that they will improve efficiency, safety, and employee satisfaction at Hermes.
Boston Dynamics’ Stretch is ready for work
JoJo Winsor, a project engineer at Boston Dynamics, is responsible for deploying Stretch robots to customer sites. This involves working closely with customers to understand their sites and needs, forming a deployment strategy for each site, and managing the installation of the off-robot systems that allow Stretch to safely unload boxes in a warehouse environment.
Prior to Boston Dynamics, Winsor worked on a variety of projects in aerospace, defense, sensor integration, underwater robotics, and as a field applications engineer at Humatics. She has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut.
Winsor replied to the following questions from Automated Warehouse about the deployment at Otto Group:
Is this a trial or a full commercial deployment?
Winsor: This is a full commercial deployment.
What are the typical weight and dimensions of Otto Group’s boxes?
Winsor: Stretch’s advanced vision systems enables it to handle a wide range of box types and sizes. Its powerful arm and gripper can lift boxes up to 50 lb. [22.6 kg].
We see a mix of freight at the Otto Group site, largely within Stretch’s wheelhouse specs.
Does Stretch notify someone in the case of exceptions, such as a box that’s tilted or stuck in a way the robot can’t grab?
Winsor: Boxes aren’t always packed nicely into shipping containers or trucks. They shift during transit, and at times, picking up one box can dislodge others, causing them to fall to the ground.
Stretch can automatically locate and retrieve these boxes without the need for a person to intervene manually, so automated recoveries are as seamless as the rest of the automated unloading operation.
If for some reason Stretch can’t grasp a box on the first try, it may attempt to grasp it from a different side or move on to pick other boxes until it has a better chance of grasping the original box.
Is the control interface for Spot similar to the one for Stretch? Are they being managed separately?
Winsor: Today, Spot and Stretch are operated with different controllers. Eventually, Spot and Stretch will both be on our Orbit robot fleet and data management platform.
With Stretch, an operator drives the robot into place using a wired pendant and starts an unloading workflow from a console.
Spot collects useful data at Otto Group
What advantages does Spot offer Otto that other robots can’t do?
Winsor: Spot supports predictive maintenance efforts at Otto Group by collecting thermal images, reading analog gauges, and detecting ultrasonic air and gas leaks.
Uniquely, Spot also autonomously inspects rotating equipment like conveyance systems for early indicators of failure. Using the SV600, Spot monitors frequencies beyond human hearing for changes in vibration caused by bearing degradation.
With Spot, Otto Group can now inspect more equipment, more frequently—without installing more inline sensors or performing more rounds with contact sensors.
Is Boston Dynamics providing remote monitoring and troubleshooting, or can Otto Group do it itself?
Winsor: The Spot robots are running autonomous missions throughout Otto Group’s warehouses, collecting visual data for machine learning models to support tasks like upper rack change detection and fire exit egress monitoring. They’re also supporting tunnel inspections and predictive maintenance activities for operations.
The Stretch robots are unloading containers. Otto Group can do their own troubleshooting and monitoring. However, to better serve our European customers we’ve also recently opened an office in Germany.
