US' Walmart & Symbotic join hands to implement automation platform

The end-to-end software-enabled high-density robotics platform plays a strategic role in supporting the retailer’s goal of modernising its vast supply chain network and allows Walmart to transform its regional distribution centres to provide faster responsiveness to store orders, increased inventory accuracy and higher capacity for receiving and shipping freight to stores, according to a press release by Walmart.

The technology’s ability to build palletised loads of department-sorted inventory ultimately enables Walmart to get products onto shelves at its more than 4,700 stores more quickly, while also making one of the toughest aspects of supply chain work, material handling, safer and simpler. It also creates new, tech-enabled jobs, such as cell operator and maintenance technician, that offer widely applicable skills in robotics and technology.

Walmart has already begun embedding Symbotic’s technology in select regional distribution centres throughout its network. The retrofitting process of all 42 regional distribution centres is expected to be completed over the next eight or more years.

The Symbotic system is a first-of-a-kind automation technology platform with a wide range of business use cases. The company reinvented the traditional warehouse with an end-to-end system powered by a fleet of fully autonomous robots and AI-powered software. Combined with a unique high-density physical structure the system improves efficiency, accuracy and agility while reducing costs. Intelligent Symbotic software orchestrates a team of robots to receive, store and retrieve a virtually limitless number of SKUs. Using proprietary end-of-arm tools and vision systems to output cases, totes and packages at industry-leading speeds.

“The expanded partnership with Walmart substantiates how our technology is truly reinventing the traditional warehouse and distribution of consumer goods across the supply chain. As a technology platform with deep roots in warehousing and distribution – our system addresses some of the biggest challenges of today’s complex supply chain, such as inventory agility, transportation cost, and labour availability. Modernising the warehouse allows consumers to get what they need faster and creates benefits for everyone including workers, customers and their local communities,” Rick Cohen, chairman, president and chief product officer of Symbotic, said in a statement.

“The need for accuracy and speed in the supply chain has never been more visible, and we’re confident that now is the time to move even faster by scaling Symbotic’s technology to our entire regional distribution centre network. Using high-speed robotics and intelligent software to organise and optimise inventory, the Symbotic System helps us get products to our customers quickly and seamlessly by revolutionising how we receive and distribute products to stores,” David Guggina, senior vice president of innovation and automation, Walmart US, said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)