AI-powered robotic arms: levelling up efficiency
Recent advancements in AI and robotics have transformative potential for the online grocery and logistics industries, driving efficiency, reducing costs, and fast-tracking productivity gains. At Ocado Group, they have over 20 years of experience testing and innovating their solutions in one of the most challenging automation environments in the retail space: online grocery.
Now, they are applying these insights to solve challenges in global supply chains. The latest game changer in this space is our AI-powered robotic arms, which offer a radical step-change in the efficiency of our customer fulfilment centres and unlock stronger economics.
Why is picking and packing notoriously challenging?
Picking and packing are some of the most important and complex fulfilment challenges in global logistics. They are also some of the most difficult challenges to solve with robotics. Grasping and handling items, and determining the qualities of each product (fragility, weight, dimensions) are skills that humans are innately able to deploy. So much so that they take their complexity for granted.
Robots simply don’t possess the same sensory or cognitive abilities as a person, such as the cognition humans rely on to learn and generalise knowledge in new situations.
In no industry is this more challenging than grocery retail, where a whole new host of complexities are introduced, from differing temperatures to delicate items like glass bottles, and food categories which vary in shape and size, such as soft fruit. Some of the difficulties our robots face include:
Variety – Their robotic arms come across tens of thousands of items of varying shapes, sizes, weights and fragility. For example, how you would handle a box of eggs would be entirely different to the approach used for a bunch of bananas. In grocery, packaging can also change seasonally, making it all the more important for robots to adapt and learn at pace.
Packaging – Imagine the dexterity and perception needed to remove an individual item, such as a jar of honey, from a cardboard tray with a plastic overwrap, and the knowledge required to select the product and not the unnecessary packaging from the tote.
Care – Robotic arms need to take care to preserve the quality of the items they pick and pack, preventing stock damage and potential downtime from spillages.
Density – Packing density is crucial to maintain the efficiency of a logistics operation. At the same time, robotic arms need to make sure bags/totes aren’t overloaded.
Rigidly programmed robotic systems widely used in other industries are not fit for the unique demands of the grocery space. To address these challenges we’ve developed a robust autonomous system, powered by advanced applications of machine learning, which is capable of making smart decisions on the fly. More about OCADO´s solution, you can read here…
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Image source: ocadogroup.com