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Demand for e-commerce order fulfillment is rising, and advances in machine vision are enabling more reliable automation. Leading robotics vendor FANUC America Corp. today announced that it has partnered with perception provider Plus One Robotics Inc. to meet the needs of their mutual customers in e-commerce.

Rochester Hills, Mich.-based FANUC America is a subsidiary of Japan-based FANUC Corp., and it provides CNC (computer numerical control) systems, robots, and factory automation. Computer vision and robotics industry veterans founded San Antonio, Texas-based Plus One Robotics in 2016. The company provides artificial intelligence and 3D vision capabilities to enable supervised autonomy and human-robot collaboration in logistics and e-commerce.

Plus One, FANUC integrate for fulfillment

The new flexible fulfillment system incorporates a FANUC robot and Plus One’s AI-powered PickOne perception system to identify, singulate, and sort a wide range of conveyable items without the need for traditional vision training, according to the companies. The system can use AI to adapt to variations in product material, size, and shape, as well as intermixed, random delivery.

If any exceptions occur, Plus One’s Yonder human-in-the-loop function notifies a “crew chief,” who can remotely manage the exception, minimizing the interruption and providing seamless sustained automatic operation, said FANUC.

Combined with a FANUC industrial robot, the system can outperform a comparable manual operation, the companies claimed. Users can benefit from shorter pick times and better order accuracy, inventory security, higher productivity, reduced operating expenses, and improved ergonomics, they said.

“We recently welcomed Plus One into our Authorized System Integrator network as a System Solution Advisor, and their technology is a great complement to our strength in robotics,” said Mike Cicco, president and CEO of FANUC America. “We’ve worked together on several successful fulfillment projects involving warehouse robots, and I’m looking forward to showcasing our combined strengths to other companies in the e-commerce, logistics, and warehouse segments.”

New tech to be shown at CEC

FANUC America will feature this new robotic fulfillment technology in its Customer Experience Center (CEC) located at the company’s headquarters in Rochester Hills. “Having the FANUC/Plus One solution here in our CEC will allow us to demonstrate the benefits of reliable, AI-powered automation to help companies increase efficiencies, and reallocate people from doing repetitive tasks to higher-level responsibilities,” added Cicco.

“FANUC America and Plus One technology work together to deliver a best-in-class solution to tackle the relentless demands of the logistics environment,” said Erik Nieves, founder and CEO of Plus One Robotics. “For companies that want to improve supply chain automation, FANUC robots and Yonder’s remote-vision capabilities deliver greater flexibility for workforce management and higher efficiencies and outputs. We’re excited about the opportunities ahead.”

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