Primitive godowns are turning into smarter warehouses
Published on : Monday 30-11--0001
What is the GreyOrange story? What drives the company?
GreyOrange was founded to build hardware robotics solutions to solve complex supply chain problems and transform the way logistics and supply chain processes across the world are being optimised. Starting in 2011 as a two-member team with immense passion for robotics and solving industry problems, the co-founders Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta identified an industry that had been technologically starved for years – warehouses – and where automation could play an impactful role.
Since then, GreyOrange has grown rapidly from a two-member team to a multinational technology company that boasts of an employee strength of over 450, having grown into a global enterprise with triple digit year-on-year growth. The company began with customers in ecommerce and logistics, and now collaborates with the automotive, retail and FMCG industries as well. With a passion for technology to solve industrial problems, the company has over 60% of the total workforce dedicated to R&D, a testimony to our emphasis on innovation.
GreyOrange has offices located in India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Germany and UAE and partners across new markets such as Indonesia and Latin America.
There are four product lines, all catering to warehouse automation. Do these take care of all requirements or any more products on the anvil?
Currently, the company has two marquee solutions, viz., Butler and Linear Sorter that have been deployed at CPG, Omni-channel retail, ecommerce and logistics industries to help them increase efficiency multi-fold and improve last mile delivery and break-bulk cargo processes.
GreyOrange Butler is an automated storage and goods-to-person order picking robotics system to streamline and accelerate the order fulfilment process. Reducing time for order fulfilment and inventory replenishment in warehouses is imperative for businesses today to gain a competitive advantage. With a throughput of up to 600 picks per hour per pick station, the GreyOrange Butlers help accelerate the productivity gains during order fulfilment and inventory replenishment, while enabling warehouse managers to reduce stock losses and pilferage by tracking inventory in real-time.
GreyOrange Linear Sorter is an advanced robotics sortation system that automates outbound profiling and sortation processes in fulfilment and distribution centres. It comprises advanced software and a conveyor based system powered by pneumatic arms that routes packages based on dynamic logic such as destination, delivery times, pin code or hub code. It can be integrated with the proprietary GreyOrange PPTL (Pick-Put-To-Light) technology for further sub-sorting the items to the last mile.
With each customer coming up with very specific challenges and problems, our solutions are customised to meet these specific requirements. Our technology is adaptable and scalable to suit the requirements of any warehouse. They take care of all requirements as the GreyOrange Butler and GreyOrange Sorter can work in almost any kind of warehouse environment.
What is the most popular product line?
The GreyOrange Butler is a goods-to-person robotics solution, powered by Artificial Intelligence, for inventory management and order fulfilment. With a very high throughput, it helps improve the time needed for order fulfilment and inventory replenishment, reduce stock losses and minimise pilferage by tracking inventory in real-time. Use of AI controls the inventory levels supports FIFO (First in First out) and FMFO (First Manufactured First Out) or even predict seasonal requirements resulting in a faster turnaround time. This improves the operator picking efficiency multifold.
The Butler is said to be more versatile than the Kiva or the Geek+. How large is the global market for this type of robots?
The GreyOrange Butler possesses a variety of communications, sensing and security technologies at its core. Following are some interesting features of the Butler:
* Moves around in the warehouse based on the programmed logic but also communicates continuously with the control unit.
* Operates on two wireless technologies for communication, i.e., Wi-Fi and ZigBee (open global standard). These are utilised to address the unique needs of low-cost, low-power wireless M2M networks.
* Its sensing technologies involve image processors and barcode scanners that communicate with control systems and respond automatically.
* Recharges based on Opportunity Charging – it assesses current power levels and optimises its battery consumption.
* The Butler is configured with extensive security protocols in place. The security is maintained in a way that if anything or anyone obstructs a Butler’s path, it immediately stops.
* Dynamic Path Planning: The Butlers move in a grid, and operate in a way so that the speed is optimum.
* Inventory Management: Butler picks and puts the racks at the best spot so that the inventory can be accurately traced and tracked.
* Stock in high vs low demand: The robots are powered by Artificial Intelligence and have machine learning capabilities.
Automated Warehousing is an emerging industry in India. How sophisticated it is today?
Warehouses, not only in India, but across the world have remained technologically starved for years. They were simply godowns crippled with traditional and manual set ups and processes. This led to high operational costs and long lead times, wrong shipments that required reverse logistics, and inaccurate documentation. With consumer preferences fast shifting from next-day delivery to same-day delivery to now four-hour delivery, the speed of warehouse operations becomes critical in order to remain competitive.
In the past few years, with e-commerce booming, the pressure increased on warehouses to adopt advanced robotics technology to ensure higher productivity and faster delivery. Now, we are in the phase where these primitive godowns are turning into smarter warehouses, fulfilment and distribution centres, where robotics solutions are deployed for put-away and picking (inventory management), profiling (quality check) and sorting based on the specific algorithms and can improve throughput by more than 200%.
This is not just restricted to ecommerce, but other industries as well where new technologies such as AI and robotics process automation are required to maintain competitive advantage and to keep up with the growing volumes of orders every day. Further, technologies will enable inter-warehouse communications where each warehouse will understand the workings of the other warehouse and will look for cost-effective ways to ensure quicker deliveries and minimise operating inefficiencies.
GreyOrange reportedly has over 90% of the Indian market. What is the potential?
GreyOrange has been a warehouse automation firm focused on e-commerce and expanding to new sectors such as retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) at a time when online retailers are trying to conserve cash.
We get over 90% of our business from e-commerce and related clients, however, we are expecting nearly half of our revenue to come from new sectors by March 2018 In India. Also, now we have started doing a lot of CPG and FMCG marketing industry jargon for products such as shampoos, soaps, toothpaste and packaged snacks.
In India, the market for industrial automation is projected to grow at a CAGR of 10-12% during 2017-2020, is expected to touch $3.49 billion by 2020 (Source: The Ken). Moreover, India is touted to be one of the key markets for industrial robotics systems in the APAC region as it will attract OEMs across the globe to set up their manufacturing units due to its low cost of production.
India’s rapid progress in the automotive sector and its evolution as an innovation hub for small cars has compelled the use of automation technologies in their assembly lines. In comparison the entry of robotics in the other sectors has been rather slow and sporadic. New verticals such as e-commerce, FMCG, Retail and Pharmaceuticals are gradually adopting robotics systems to move up the value chain. India’s pursuit to become one of the preferred manufacturing destinations, with modern manufacturing practices, is already paving the way for innovation in and adoption of smarter systems and robotics automation across many sectors.
GST is said to unleash the potential of logistics and warehousing business. Is this translating into actual orders?
With Goods and Services Tax (GST) – a single tax head, India has now become 'one market' and the ease of doing business will improve immensely. Large enterprises, SMEs and end consumers, everyone will benefit from the simplified tax structure. The maximum impact of the implementation of GST will be on the supply chain, as this will require companies to finally optimise their supply chain networks based on scientific principles and logic, instead of disparate tax structures across the country which has been the case so far.
Companies can look to have large, state-of-the-art warehouses as a result of consolidation, between four and 10 times the size of the current facilities. To operate such facilities efficiently and reliably, businesses will need more than just trained manpower. This is where GreyOrange products play an important role – to automate the warehouses in order to make these more efficient, accurate, productive and profitable.
For a company steeped in automation and robotics, how automated are the manufacturing facilities of GreyOrange? How many plants? Any plans for further expansion?
In today's fast paced and competitive discrete manufacturing world, automation is essential and surely a determining success factor. In response to our exponential growth both in size and volume of our global operations, we have recently established our new and substantially larger state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. While we have successfully embarked on the automation journey with the new production line, we intend to hit the right mix that will enable us to deliver global quality standards for our clients with the flexibility to undergo rapid changes as we continue to grow exponentially across product lines.
Captions:
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The Butlers move around in the warehouse based on programmed logic and also communicate continuously with the control unit.
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GreyOrange Linear Sorter is an advanced robotics sortation system.