High throughput and tight integration

By Simon Duddy, Editor, Logistics Matters

WHEN I spoke to Ocado Intelligent Automation CEO Mark Richardson at LogiMAT there was no shortage of robotics providers with technology vying for attention. It’s fair to ask, what makes Ocado so special?

“There’s a few factors that set our solution apart,” explains Mark. “The robotic picking arms we deploy are tightly integrated with the robots at the top of the OSRS grid. The two robots are aware of each other.

“Contrast with other providers and the picking arms are at workstations to the side of the grid. With our system, there is no need to deliver items to a pick station and return to the grid. There is just the ASRS and the bot, opening up greater picking and space efficiencies.”

Mark continues: “What’s also important is that we are not testing this technology. We have deployed this picking robot widely on site. Our facility in Luton has our most advanced tech in it, with 50 robotic arm pickers on top of the grid. We are in the process of rolling these robotic arms out across our global grid estate.”

Ocado has also innovated in buffering and sequencing, finding ways to use the grid to help with this. Typically, an automated system comprises discrete parts – a picking zone then another zone for taking those picks and sequencing them for dispatch.

Mark explains: “Of course the robots are very fast, but one of the ways we achieve high throughputs is we can pick an item from inside the storage bin and we can also store the finished pick back in the grid.”

The gird itself is almost becoming a microcosm of the warehouse. The grid has bins containing stock but also a store of empty bins waiting for stock; as well as a store of empty bins waiting for customer orders; and a store of finished customer orders waiting to be dispatched. Essentially the order buffer is built into the system.

“Each component can be scaled up and down according to need,” says Mark. “There is no snaking conveyor from picking to dispatch. We can extract orders in any sequence we choose and we have the freedom to optimise both pick and despatch.”

So far, so innovative, how does help Mark position Ocado’s key strengths?

He says: “We have higher throughput potential than competitors. Grocery is tough application with lots of SKUs and demand for high throughput. That has been our proving ground, and what we have learned and developed will be of benefit to customers in other sectors such as apparel and pharma.”

The solution has very high throughput potential. The biggest system it has built has 3,000 robots, 750,000 storage bins, and can process more than 1.5 million items per day.

One customer is healthcare firm McKesson in Canada.

“We are unusually well positioned to help big customers with multiple sites and high throughputs. We have experience as an integrator of our technology both for ourselves and grocery customers.

“These are high stakes projects and we’ve done it multiple times. We also use high fidelity simulations.

“However, we are not just aiming at big customers. We can build these grids down to a smaller size.”

In addition, the system can provide very dense storage.

“We can save customers a surprising amount of real estate. When we come in after the client has procured the warehouse, quite often they realise they could have built a smaller building,” say Mark.

AMRs too

Ocado Intelligent Automation has also developed AMR solutions, via the acquired 6River Systems, that can work for SMEs or in conjunction with Ocado’s grid solution.

Chuck is a ‘follow me’ AMR that works alongside the manual picker in the warehouse. Ocado has extended it in two ways, one by making the GUI and software available without the AMR and also by extending its size to transport pallets with the Porter AMR.

Mark says: “Porter can help workers pick cases to a pallet, which allows you to construct an outbound pallet during the pick walk. We think Porter will find its own customers, and will also integrate with OSRS. For example, Porter can take pallets to the grid, a depalletiser robot can take cases from it and load bins in the grid. And do the opposite on the way out. Using this combination of technology we can build a very effective DC for handling cases.”

Way to market

While Ocado is obviously well known as an online grocer in the UK, and as a provider of automated fulfilment on a rental model to grocers worldwide; Mark’s remit is capital purchase to ‘everyone outside grocery eCommerce’.

Ocado has a two track approach, one direct and one via integrators.

Mark explains the dual strategy: “We have experience running warehouses and we are a very good integration partner. Direct, we can add value to certain kinds of clients, especially those looking to achieve very high throughputs.

“That said, we don’t have great brand presence in every part of the world so we hope the deal with Gebhardt in the DACH region will be the first of a few well targeted partnerships.”