Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are increasingly common in warehouses and distribution centers (DCs) around the world—largely because their flexibility, scalability, and ease-of-use make them ideal tools for automating pick, pack, ship, and similar tasks in facilities of all sizes. And they’ve proved to be a solid choice for boosting productivity and dealing with labor shortages in recent years. In fact, these versatile tools were a buffer against slowing investments in warehouse automation last year, according to late 2023 data from market research firm Interact Analysis. The research showed a decline in demand for warehouse automation overall, driven by an 8% drop in order intake for fixed systems (defined as anything that is bolted to the floor, including conveyors and shuttles). However, in the same period, demand for mobile robotic solutions grew 38%.
You need look no further than recent industry projects to see that logistics has become a showplace of AMR innovation—and is inspiring other industries to follow suit. Robotics developer Geek+ has helped third-party logistics services provider (3PL) UPS Supply Chain Solutions implement a goods-to-person robotic picking solution that could be expanded across multiple DCs, for instance. The solution was serving customers at six UPS Supply Chain Solutions facilities as of December. And automation leader Zebra Technologies has expanded its reach into sustainable farming, working with agriculture startup Hippo Harvest to combine mobile robotics with plant science and machine learning to improve the growing of leafy greens in the startup’s Pescadero, California, greenhouse.
Here’s a look at how the virtues of the versatile AMR are helping both organizations reach their business goals.
LAUNCH POINT: LOGISTICS
Third-party logistics companies have been some of the main drivers of warehouse automation, as more retailers, brands, and online merchants outsource their rising fulfillment needs. A May 2023 report from Interact Analysis pointed to a “noticeable acceleration in the adoption of AMRs by third-party logistics providers globally,” citing growing demand for solutions that can perform both material transport and order fulfillment tasks in warehouses.
UPS Supply Chain Solutions is an example of the trend. The company was under pressure to meet growing order volumes in 2021, spurring its leaders to research robotics solutions for the 3PL’s labor-intensive fulfillment operations. Like most warehousing operations at the time, UPS Supply Chain Solutions was facing pandemic-era staffing challenges that made it difficult to meet seasonal throughput demands. Ultimately, company leaders turned to Geek+ and its AMR-based goods-to-person picking system, launching a proof-of-concept trial in the 3PL’s Bloomington, California, warehouse in March 2022 that aimed to reduce costs and boost throughput for a particular client: San Francisco-based sustainable footwear and apparel company Allbirds. The test was conducted in UPS Supply Chain Solutions warehouse space adjacent to Allbirds’ existing West Coast fulfillment operation, which continued without disruption throughout the 90-day pilot project, according to the companies.
The project team deployed 27 Geek+ shelf-to-person AMRs—small, Roomba-like robots that transport inventory racks to picking stations, eliminating the need for pickers to traverse warehouse aisles filling orders. In addition to improving worker safety, reducing labor requirements, and improving picking accuracy, this kind of automated picking typically boosts efficiency by two to three times, according to Geek+. The project was also designed with expansion in mind: As Geek+ and UPS Supply Chain Solutions went through the initial onboarding process—working out the data integration, security, networking, system communication, and other details for the Allbirds test—they also focused on developing a protocol that could be implemented throughout the 3PL’s facility network for the benefit of other clients.
“It was important to us to be able to standardize how we use Geek+ and how we could partner with them moving forward,” says David Steffey, director of industrial engineering for North American Logistics and distribution at UPS Supply Chain Solutions. “When setting up a location, we wanted to be able to essentially copy and paste from one deployment to the next. That would allow us to be more accurate, successful, and efficient with our deployments.”
The Allbirds test was so successful that the teams soon expanded the footprint, adding 70 robots and 200 racks to the system. By the end of the trial period, the teams were ready to implement the AMR solution for Allbirds at UPS Supply Chain Solutions' Ontario, California, warehouse as well as its Louisville, Kentucky, facility, serving the footwear company’s East and West Coast operations. Both were up and running in time for the 2022 peak holiday shipping season, and the results speak for themselves: Using a combined 184 robots at the two locations, the facilities handled a 160% year-over-year increase in unit throughput and saw a 400% increase in picked units per hour compared to the previous holiday peak. They also decreased labor hours 18% year over year and experienced back-to-back record days during peak.
UPS Supply Chain Solutions has since expanded the system to five other facilities, serving six additional customers. The 3PL is also using the AMRs for more tasks these days, including tote-to-person transport—which also involves the use of robotic picking arms—and for receiving inventory.
NEXT STOP: SUSTAINABLE FARMING
Software engineer and entrepreneur Eitan Marder-Eppstein was looking for a startup project that would prove personally meaningful and globally impactful when he co-founded Hippo Harvest, a California-based agriculture venture, in 2018. The company grows lettuce in sustainable greenhouse environments; its goal is to produce the healthiest possible greens in a pesticide-free environment, using less water and less land than traditional farming methods require. Advanced plant science, machine learning, and robotics are the keys to making it all work—and Hippo Harvest has partnered with the experts at Zebra Technologies since 2019 to produce real-world results.
The two companies have similar roots. Marder-Eppstein got his start at the now-defunct robotics incubator Willow Garage, which produced several robotics spinoff organizations, including Fetch Robotics, the industrial and logistics robot development company that is now part of Zebra. Although Marder-Eppstein’s post-Willow Garage projects took him in a different direction, he says it was hard to ignore the robotics revolution that Fetch and its contemporaries were spawning in logistics—and its potential to spur change elsewhere, including agriculture.
“We had seen what had happened in the warehousing and logistics space in the last 15 years,” he explains, pointing to the “oversized Roombas” roaming around warehouses across the country and around the world. “They were moving shelves around and allowing for flexibility in operations. We saw an opportunity to take that technology and move it to the greenhouse setting.”
And so they did. Hippo Harvest built a technology system that uses machine learning to determine how much water, fertilizer, and light are needed to produce its crops, which are grown in large trays in greenhouses. Inside the greenhouse, the company uses Zebra’s Freight100 AMRs to do the farm’s heavy lifting. The AMRs deliver precise levels of water and nutrients to plants, functioning as a robotic watering can, so there’s no need for plumbing in the facility. They also help harvest the plants: Much like you’d see in a fulfillment center, the AMRs travel through the greenhouse, maneuvering themselves underneath the growing trays, using a scissor lift to grasp the bottom of the tray, and then moving the trays to various stations throughout the facility.
The AMRs even help with maintenance.
“They vacuum the farm. They take crops through a harvester,” says Marder-Eppstein, comparing the AMRs to tractors on traditional farms. “[They are a] tool that increases your ability to get work done. We’re always finding new applications for the robots.”
A case in point: In its effort to eliminate the use of pesticides, Hippo Harvest began experimenting with a new disinfection technique that involved the use of UV-C light. Within a week, the company had developed an attachment for the AMR that can be used to deliver the UV-C treatment.
Matt Wicks, senior director of product management for robotics automation at Zebra, says such advances illustrate that the “sky’s the limit” when it comes to the mobile robots’ potential.
“At the end of the day, we design the product to be extendable to areas we didn’t even think about,” Wicks says, adding that Zebra’s AMRs are finding a similar home in hospitals and health-care settings, where they deliver medication to patients. “So that’s the intent of this. It’s gone further than we intended to go—and that’s good.”
Marder-Eppstein agrees, adding that Zebra’s robotic platform does more than just automate functions in the greenhouse. He says the AMRs are full partners in the productivity and plant health aspects of the operation as well, helping to collect the data that Hippo Harvest’s machine learning platform uses to evaluate and improve operations. Cameras mounted to the AMRs are used to monitor growing operations, taking 3D images of plants and processes as they move throughout the facility.
“The robots act as scouts for us. [They are] constantly collecting data” on temperature, carbon dioxide, light transmission, and humidity, Marder-Eppstein explains. “All of that feeds into a greenhouse operating system that [we are] constantly looking [to improve].”
The Hippo Harvest/Zebra partnership is now fully operational at the company’s first farm, a 150,000-square-foot greenhouse on the California coast. Thanks to the AMRs, the greenhouse is using 92% less water and 55% less fertilizer compared to a conventional produce-growing operation. Those and other advances are pushing the company further: Marder-Eppstein says he and his team plan to keep building on the current operation and eventually expand to other regions, establishing sustainable farms in close proximity to consumers.
The Zebra platform will be a key part of that mission.
“These mobile robots are more of a general-purpose computing platform than people think. It’s almost been a little shocking to see how quickly this can be adapted in other markets,” Marder-Eppstein says. “We can do [all this] because we haven’t had to spend time developing something from scratch that looks simple but isn’t. We've been able to rely on Zebra to provide the foundation on which we can build. It really has allowed us to do more with less.”
