Inventors of the Mobile Robotic Fulfillment System to be inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame
The inventors of the Mobile Robotic Fulfillment System in intralogistics, Mick Mountz (59), Dr. Peter Wurman (59), and Prof. Dr. Raffaello D'Andrea (57), are entering the Logistics Hall of Fame. With their developments for the company Kiva Systems, founded in the USA in 2003, the trio has enabled numerous e-commerce companies to deliver goods efficiently and error-free on the same day. Logistics employees no longer walk along shelves looking for orders; instead, Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) move a shelf with inventory to the picking stations.
"Mountz, Wurman and D'Andrea can claim to have made the goods-to-person picking concept the global standard for many e-commerce and omnichannel processes. For many companies, Mobile Robotic Fulfillment Systems are the technological basis for same-day delivery as we know it today," says Anita Wuermser, Executive Jury Chairwoman of the Logistics Hall of Fame, emphasizing the decision of the expert jury, which includes 70 well-known personalities from business, science, politics and the media in 13 nations.
At the heart of the system are mobile transport robots that ensure the continuous movement of stock on small shelves between the storage areas and picking stations. In traditional logistics centers, people used to walk up to 15 kilometers a day to search for products on shelves. With the Mobile Robotic Fulfillment System, stocks are consolidated in the middle of the warehouse instead. The workers are located at picking stations around the perimeter. Once an order has been received, the mobile transport robots are activated to retrieve the right mini-shelf and bring it to an employee who places the ordered products in a shipping carton. The principle can be scaled up quickly and cheaply, and the return on investment is usually less than two years. Long walking distances and transportations by forklift trucks, where there is always a risk of accidents, are now a thing of the past in many retail warehouses.
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