Symbotic rides wave of logistics automation demand

Most warehouses are inefficient and inflexible, with limited or no automation. Many automation solutions are fixed capital assets that can’t easily adapt to dynamic business conditions.

The modular Symbotic warehouse automation system enables fully automated warehouses with robot-to-robot handoffs throughout. Robotic depalletizers remove cases from inbound pallets one layer at a time. SymBot mobile robots, equipped with advanced computer vision, autonomously navigate a 10-level football-field sized structure at speeds of over 20 mph, storing and retrieving cases and delivering them to outbound cells where robot palletizers with proprietary end-of-arm tools build pallets optimized for downstream nodes.

In 2023, Symbotic made several significant enhancements to the system, including adding cameras and advanced traction control to the SymBots, improved software that orchestrates and powers the system in both the palletization and routing algorithms, and the ability to learn from the up to 6 terabytes of data the system collects per day.

Symbotic is currently selling its system to retailers, wholesalers, and grocers with large distribution operations. It said one client has over 5,000 stores that require daily replenishment. With the Symbotic system, the customer has reduced stock outs, increased the efficiency of store replenishment, and reduced operating costs by 5x.

Symbotic said it has over $24 billion in committed orders from some of the largest retailers, wholesalers and grocers, including Walmart, Target, C&S Wholesalers, Albertsons, and others. Walmart is implementing the system in all 42 of their regional distribution centers.

Symbotic is empowering its customers to operate with unprecedented speed, efficiency, flexibility and accuracy. It helps customers transform their warehouses into a strategic asset with data-driven operations.

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