Visitors to Stand 301 at IntraLogisteX USA 2024, which opened this morning [22 October] at the Miami Beach Convention Center, can see the Ocado Storage and Retrieval System (OSRS), an ultra-high-density cubic storage and retrieval system combining world-proven automation with business intelligence.
Offering technologies and competencies to confidently transform supply chains, Ocado Intelligent Automation’s autonomous, concurrent bots-on-grid design reduces the surface area and level of human oversight needed at both greenfield and brownfield sites.
Flexible bin storage systems can handle products from a wide range of industries, enabling businesses to increase order throughput, speed and accuracy. Moreover, the company’s world-class warehouse execution system software orchestrates and optimises every part of the process.
Seamless scalability and platform design enables easy system expansion to meet rapidly changing business requirements and increased consumer demand.
Speaking about its OSRS, Ocado Intelligent Automation’s chief solutions officer, Anne Marie Neatham, said: “Our next-generation bot, our 600 Series bot that we’re demoing, is a bot that is created using additive manufacturing, which makes the bot very light. It means the base, the grid on which the bots run, can be much lighter.
“We have both metal and plastic totes available. Metal totes obviously have significant benefits in terms of safety and fire prevention in warehouses. And in addition to this, we have our own grid robotic pick. So the grid on which our bots run, to pick products and bring them to the edge of the grid, would normally be brought to the edge of the grid and you’d send the bots with the products you want to pick down to a pick station.
“And in Ocado’s case, you can either pick out-of-grid and take the products away. So that might be for e-commerce – these are high volume customers – or you can pick integrate. So you pick a product and you can restore the product in the grid and make that order available to come out in the order in which you choose when it’s available to outload.
“We’re also demoing our unique on-grid robotic pick, which means you can bring a tote of items over to the OGRP arm, and it will pick that item into another box automatically, no humans involved. And that is really a step towards a completely lights-out warehouse. And that’s what the real goal is here – needing minimum numbers of people in a warehouse that functions by itself with very little interruption.”
In addition to the OSRS, Ocado Intelligent Automation is also showcasing its Chuck AMR solution, which Neatham explains is a pick-to-light device that moves along the ground in front of an operative, allowing them to pick products into it.
Ocado Intelligent Automation’s Chuck AMR can be integrated with a handheld device, useful for navigating very narrow aisle (VNA) racking that larger vehicles might struggle to get through.
Neatham also revealed that the company will have a third offering available in this space from October 2025 called Porter. This solution, she said, will allow operators to pick onto a pallet, which is useful for larger items. She adds that Porter should enable a company with relatively low volumes to avail of heavy automation.
On her hopes for IntraLogisteX USA, Neatham told Logistics Manager: “What we hope to do is meet clients, and we have [already] met a few, who are interested in automating their warehouses. And depending on the volume of that automation, or the products that they want to move through a warehouse, depending on the solutions that they need, we can discuss the different options that Ocado offers, depending on the volume and the throughput of their warehouse.”
Ocado Intelligent Automation picked up the Supply Chain Product Award at the Supply Chain Excellence Awards USA. Neatham said that it was “wonderful” to have won the award, and added that it serves to validate what she described as “a very strong feature in Ocado generally” – the ability to make sense of the supply chain and move products efficiently. This is something she believes Ocado Intelligent Automation has done for 20 years in the grocery space, and has applied to the non-grocery market.
“We’re really pleased with that validation and to have that acknowledged,” Neatham concluded.
IntraLogisteX USA, America’s fastest-growing warehousing, logistics and supply chain trade show, is taking place at Miami Beach Convention Centre on 22-23 October 2024. There’s still time to get your free ticket – click here to register!
