GreyOrange, a global provider of solutions that modernize fulfillment operations through the AI-driven GreyMatter™ Fulfillment Operating System (FOS) and Ranger™ Robot Series, today announced the company has received the 2021 “RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award” by Robotics Business Review. Out of a record number of submissions this year, GreyOrange was selected for their partnership with Vicarious, launching the industry’s first and only Autonomous Vertical Picking solution for automated pick-n-pack operations in omnichannel fulfillment.

“The pandemic has accelerated consumers’ demand for immediacy when it comes to their orders, with recent research finding that 45% of consumers across EMEA would be put off from reordering from a brand if their product did not arrive within two days,” said Akash Gupta, Co-Founder and CTO at GreyOrange. “This partnership expands the autonomous picking capabilities of our GreyMatter platform, enabling fulfillment centers to operate at higher throughputs without interruption. The combined solution generates a safe and rapid return-on-investment through increased productivity and saves time, cost and labor.”

The joint solution placed in RBR50’s “Application and Market Innovation” category, recognizing sector specific, newly developed applications that deliver value, provide entry to new markets, or improve performance over existing approaches.

The key benefits of Autonomous Vertical Picking include:

  • Efficiency: Overall solution improves capacity and reduces fulfillment costs for customers
  • Safety: Enables human workforce to maintain safe physical distance, reduces repetitive tasks
  • Sustainability: Capable of handling bagged or unbagged apparel items to reduce plastic waste
“The combination of automated order picking by Vicarious, together with the continual flow of bulk inventory with the GreyOrange AMRs, is a unique fulfillment workflow solution on the market,” said Mike Oitzman, Founder of Mobile Robot Guide. “The FOS has knowledge about all of the customer orders for the day and orchestrates all of the automation on the warehouse floor to fulfill customer orders. The result is that this solution is helping e-commerce and omnichannel players increase the efficiency of their operations by 300 to 400 percent, while also providing safe and socially-distanced work environments for their associates.”