Kerry Logistics has introduced six robotic butlers at its flagship facility in Hong Kong to speed up the picking process in line with trends in e-commerce.
The robots operate 24/7 and can pick 280 items per hour compared to 50 items normally, and the pick rate is four times faster.
Kerry said this made ideal for retail brands which sell a wide variety of consumer products with potentially expanding e-commerce business as speed-to-market was key to their success.
Real time sales orders are transmitted from retailers and e-commerce providers to Kerry’s warehouse management system and then to the robotic butlers.
The system indicates the right items to be picked for shipments using a simple lighting system in which every item is tracked via barcodes.
