April 8, 2019 – Chicago, IL
Locus Robotics announces the launch of its Spring 2019 software and hardware suite. The release features significant new functionality, as well as enhancements to the Company’s multi-bot software, hardware, and user experience (UX). As a whole, the release is designed to further improve productivity, operational flexibility and performance, and efficiency for retail/e-tail, third party logistics (3PL), distribution and industrial specialty customers.
The Company’s new software and hardware capabilities also enable Locus to fully support all omnichannel methods including retail, wholesale, and e-commerce fulfillment, permitting true task interleaving, and allowing multiple order types to be fulfilled simultaneously on a single robot.
“Our Spring 2019 Release incorporates several powerful, productivity-driving enhancements into our multi-bot solution,” said Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics. “We’re especially excited to introduce the industry’s first, full omnichannel support that seamlessly handles all aspects of fulfillment for retail, wholesale, and e-commerce channels. Together, these new features enable us to deliver even greater levels of optimization and productivity gains to our customers and continue our goal of consistently delivering results and innovation across the entire spectrum of order fulfillment.”
Primary features of the Spring 2019 release include:
- Full omnichannel fulfillment support. This feature enables efficient picking of complex retail shipments and permits simultaneous picking for retail store replenishment, wholesale, and e-commerce orders on a single robot.
- Fully enabled putaway functionality. This feature allows items to be easily and accurately restocked or returned to inventory. As a result, productivity and efficiency improves significantly while allowing workers to interleave tasks between pick and put.
- Multi-order, multi-tote picking. LocusBots can now easily accommodate a full range of picking containers. The result is that different cartons and totes of any size can work with any pick process or workflow, further enhancing fulfillment productivity and throughput.
- Bulk item picking. Large quantities of goods can be picked in bulk and carried by the LocusBot to a sortation station for later sorting.
- Real-time traffic flow management. The Locus software can now dynamically balance workloads with real-time traffic management and flow control of the AMRs to significantly improve picking velocity and productivity in the warehouse. This allows the LocusBots to react and adapt to changes in the warehouse.
- And my favorite: Gamification. Locus customers can now use real-time order picking data, to create fun and engaging internal competitions to motivate and reward warehouse associates for achieving higher order fulfillment levels. In this novel way, Locus is improving the working experience for employees, while also maximizing productivity and throughput for retail and 3PL customers. This feature is especially valuable for companies that integrate pay-for-performance (PFP) programs to incentivize their workers.
Hardware features include:
- Improved top-off auto-charging. This new capability ensures that the LocusBots on the warehouse floor are always charged and ready for action. Locus has developed a proprietary algorithm which automatically recognizes when an AMR is not needed during the day and can send it to a charger to “top-off” the battery charge. The algorithm understands the optimal charge state required for the fleet to operate during peak periods of the day.
- A new accessory power port. This new, mast-mounted accessory power port allows LocusBots to add a wide range of mobile hardware for use during piece handling. For example, onboard printers can be tasked to print while driving, saving time that would otherwise be spent walking to printers for shipping labels, pick tickets, and more.
- Custom robot branding. Locus can add customer-branded graphics or fun graphical themes to extend customer branding to their fleet of LocusBots in the warehouse!
To see the latest hardware and software features from Locus Robotics this week, stop by the Locus Robotics booth (S3212) at the ProMAT show in Chicago, April 8-11, 2019.
