Walmart will roll out 19 autonomous forklifts from automation vendor Fox Robotics to unload pallets from trucks at four of its most modern DCs, and has bought an ownership stake in the vendor, the company said today.
The deal follows a 16-month proof of concept that saw workers at Walmart Distribution Center 6020 in Brooksville, Florida, work alongside the “FoxBot” units from Texas-based Fox Robotics.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But Walmart’s move to invest growth capital for a minority stake in the firm follows a $9 million venture capital round in 2020, which raised Fox Robotics’ total backing at the time to $13 million.
Walmart executives were quick to say that the robots would not simply replace workers. “Automation isn’t just good for business – it’s good for our associates too,” Maurice Gray, General Manager, Distribution Center 6020, said in a blog post.
“Sometimes, working smarter can look like working harder. That’s certainly how it appears in 6020, where the relationship between our associates and our automated systems is one of constant progress and higher output,” Gray said. “Associates are being trained to operate the FoxBot autonomous forklift, designed to fully automate the warehouse loading dock. And so far, it’s working. That’s why Walmart invested growth capital for a minority stake in Fox Robotics, demonstrating a multi-year commitment to the company and its technology.”
According to Walmart, the autonomous forklifts are a “perfect complement” to the automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) within the facility. The FoxBots use AI-powered machine vision and dynamic planning to unload pallets from arriving trucks and ferry them to be inducted into the AS/RS, which catalogues and stores the goods. Meanwhile, the Walmart warehouse workers who used to unload that inventory manually have been “upskilled” to direct the forklifts to follow the most efficient strategies, Walmart said.
“Fox Robotics has unlocked the final step of the fully end-to-end automated warehouse of the future with its FoxBot autonomous loader/unloader capabilitie,” Till Reuter, a board member at Fox Robotics and the former CEO of Kuka Robotics, said in an email. “The logistics space is the single biggest market for automation for the next 5-10 years, and the shipping and receiving dock—the gateway to the warehouse—will see a disproportionate share of that growth due to its virtually entirely unautomated present state.”
Gartner, Inc.