{"id":337166,"date":"2017-03-30T18:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T10:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1470735"},"modified":"2017-03-30T18:00:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T10:00:03","slug":"6-river-systems-unveils-warehouse-robots-that-show-workers-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/6-river-systems-unveils-warehouse-robots-that-show-workers-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"6 River Systems unveils warehouse robots that show workers the way"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Amazon acquired Kiva Systems in 2012, other retailers and third-party fulfillment centers panicked. The\u00a0e-commerce giants took Kiva\u2019s robots off the market, leaving their competitors without\u00a0an important productivity tool. Lots of newcomers have cropped up\u00a0to help warehouses keep up with demand since then. But\u00a0one of the most hotly anticipated robots in this space was under wraps, until today.<\/p>\n

Based in Waltham, Mass. 6 River Systems Inc.<\/a> is finally making their \u201ccollaborative fulfillment system\u201d available for\u00a0purchase.\u00a0Founded by former Kiva executives Jerome Dubois and Rylan Hamilton with Mimio\u2019s Christopher Cacioppo, 6RS named its flagship\u00a0robot Chuck after the Charles River.<\/p>\n

Dubois said, \u201cChuck looks like a pick cart they already use in warehouses. It is autonomous and navigates on its own. And here\u2019s the golden egg, it leads the associate through their work.\u201d In other words, the robots were designed to collaborate alongside humans, not replace them.<\/p>\n

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6 River Systems robots lead workers to items they need to get from a warehouse shelf.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Chuck\u00a0is about 3 feet long, 2 feet wide and stands up to\u00a04 feet tall with a shelf at about 3.5 feet. Height can be adjusted to match what\u2019s comfortable for most workers.<\/p>\n

To guide workers to pick items off the shelves quickly, Chuck has an 11-inch touchscreen on-board, which shows them\u00a0where to find something on a packed, warehouse shelf. The screen displays images of the items a worker is about to pick, the quantity they\u2019ll need to pick, and the numeric id on the item like a SKU or barcode. And it lets workers know\u00a0which direction they\u2019ll be heading next.<\/p>\n

Sensors and\u00a0software allow Chuck to track data, and\u00a0give feedback to workers, celebrating\u00a0the moment they achieve a personal best, for example, or alerting them to areas for improvements, Dubois explained.<\/p>\n

Dubois said, \u201cFrom a data perspective, we can also provide information to warehouse operators who today rely on paper and clipboards to make a lot of decisions about staffing. They\u2019ll be able to understand, in\u00a0real time, how is their\u00a0warehouse operating. And they\u2019ll see if you have a really hard time in Aisle 5 with these kind of items but do a really great job in Aisle 9 with different inventory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The startup will compete with\u00a0other industrial robot makers like:\u00a0Locus<\/a>, Fetch<\/a>, IAM<\/a>, Rethink<\/a> and others. Their\u00a0robots all take a different form, of course. IAM robots\u00a0pick items using an arm and a suction cup. Fetch robots are used in pairs with one robot\u00a0finding the way and another\u00a0carting inventory or performing tasks.\u00a0And\u00a0Locus Robotics units navigate autonomously, through the aisles of a warehouse, calling nearby workers to put specific items into the carts.<\/p>\n

Eclipse Ventures<\/a> Partner Seth Winterroth who invested in 6RS\u2019s $6 million seed round said now that the robots are on the market, \u201cI expect 6RS will\u00a0integrate systems on site with customers, and have those customers experience substantial increases in efficiency from a throughput perspective, then get ready\u00a0to deploy them in larger volumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winterroth emphasized that\u00a0many companies in this space are building intriguing technologies, but the winner in this market will need to focus on\u00a0what really happens in a warehouse environment and\u00a0helps workers safely increase their pick rates.<\/p>\n

The new 6RS\u00a0robots will be on display at\u00a0ProMat<\/a>\u00a0in Chicago next week, an important tradeshow for geeks in supply chain, manufacturing and automation.<\/p>\n

Featured Image: 6 River Systems<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" When\u00a0Amazon acquired Kiva Systems in 2012, other retailers and third-party fulfillment centers panicked. The\u00a0e-commerce giants took Kiva’s robots off the market, leaving their competitors without\u00a0an important productivity tool. Lots of newcomers have cropped up\u00a0to help warehouses keep up with demand since then. But\u00a0one of the most hotly anticipated robots in this space was under… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-337166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}