Berkshire Grey tackles e-commerce inefficiency with robotic put wall

Warehouse automation provider Berkshire Grey has unveiled an artificial-intelligence-enabled “robotic shuttle put wall” (RSPW) for e-commerce operations. The company also announced that its pick-and-pack solutions are now available globally.

The put wall is an automated solution that can handle as much as 240 orders at a time in a single wall, up from an average of 80 orders manual walls can handle, the company said.

A put wall is a shelving system that is outfitted with lighting that indicates when an order is complete. Each slot in the wall can accept a tote that represents an e-commerce customer order. Typically, workers or robots place items in the totes or slots from one side of the wall, and on the other side, workers or robots remove the items/totes for packing.

“E-commerce continues to grow and surge. Our automation enables retailers to increase capacity to meet the growing demand and helps to deliver efficient revenue growth,” said Tom Wagner, founder and CEO at Berkshire Grey (NASDAQ: BGRY). “Berkshire Grey’s AI-enabled Robotic Shuttle Put Wall is built on proven technology deployed by customers today. This new platform increases order processing speeds, optimizes the fulfillment workforce and most importantly gets more orders out the door more quickly.”

E-commerce fulfillment is three times more labor-intensive compared to standard logistics operations, according to a 2020 report from real estate investment trust Prologis Inc. (NYSE: PLD). In addition, the firm found that online sales are twice as volatile as brick-and-mortar retail sales. Typically, one employee per 1,000 square feet of warehouse space is needed for logistics operations, but e-commerce operations require as many as three employees on average to work the same amount of space.