GreyOrange, a multinational company that develops automation for warehouses, distribution and fulfillment centers, announced the beta launch of its Butler PickPal at LogiMat 2018 in Stuttgart, Germany.

As e-commerce continues to boom, orders need to be fulfilled faster with more accuracy and cost-efficiency. The Butler PickPal hopes to improve customers’ order picking processes thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine vision. GreyOrange said the collaborative robot, while working alongside a warehouse operator, can achieve 500-600 picks per hour.

The 6-axis Butler PickPal robotic arm handles more than 100,000 SKUs that weigh up to 8.8 pounds. It handles different packaging types, including boxes, pouches, bottles and vacuum-sealed items, and uses machine learning to identify SKUs and figure out the best strategy for gripping each item. Using AI-based order processing, the Butler PickPal manages up to 48 orders at the same time.

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“Working closely with our customers, we see that the order picking process for e-commerce products take up a high percentage of the resources of warehouse staff,” said GreyOrange chief technology officer Akash Gupta. “As companies face increasing challenges in hiring employees, the adoption of automation is the answer to increase productivity, reduce costs and improve the turnaround time.”

GreyOrange designed the Butler PickPal to work with its works goods-to-person Butler robotics system that enables warehouses to manage high-speed operations by automating order picking and fulfilment.

“The Collaborative Robots market is poised for exceptional growth over the next years, growing to 34% of the global robotics spending by 2025. The material handling segment is expected to experience the largest growth in collaborative robot instalments as more companies deploy them into their processes,” said Gupta. “We are excited to participate in this segment to help unlock the next level of efficiency in last-mile delivery for e-commerce operations.”

GreyOrange expects the Butler PickPal to be deployed in select sites by mid-2018. The Butler robotics system has already been deployed in distribution centers in Japan, Hong Kong, India, Europe and the Americas.