World's Most Innovative warehouse , Attabotics - Inspired by the structure of Ant Colonies

Hello everyone, I am Nikitha - A final year MBA student from Amrita School Of Business majoring in Operations and Marketing. I am back with my blog and this time I am going to take you through the innovative logistics of the company Attabotics . 

Inspired by the framework of ant colonies, this automation company transforms the rows and aisles of a typical warehouse into a single, vertical storage structure that’s modular and scalable—and it uses robots to store and retrieve items for box packers. It estimates that it’s reduced warehouse space by 85% for companies in beauty and luxury goods, food, beverage, medical supplies, and more. So how do they do it?

Automation company Attabotics shrinks the typical sprawling warehouse into compact, vertical units, using robots to ferry items from shelves to box packers. Attabotics’s system is in six locations across North America, including food and beverage and medical supply facilities; in 2019, the company announced a partnership with Nordstrom to build a 340,000-square-foot warehouse, down from the company’s typical 1.5 million (or more) square feet. The intent, is to put fulfillment centers in smaller spaces, closer to customers, while easing the burden on workers and reducing commerce’s carbon footprint.

                                                Attabotics follows the principles of being precise, scalable, ergonomic and powerful. They focus on highest density storage by footprint and believe their solution has Industry leading throughput. They achieve this by true 3D storage and robot travel. They claim that they have the fastest robot cycle time with no charging downtime. Any bin is accessible by all workstations in the warehouse with Just-in-time waveless order picking. They have modular design with rapid construction and commissioning which can be expandable in any direction without impacting operations. The processes are Streamlined to eliminate unnecessary touchpoints with no single point of failure.

  

                                                  

IDEAL FOR ROBOTS

Attabotics’s container-­wielding bots navigate each storage unit from above. To retrieve items, they drop through empty columns, place their container on an empty shelf, and pick up another container on the way down. After ferrying the item to a box packer on the border of the unit, the bots return to the top.

SAVING SPACE

Traditional “pick and pack” warehouses rely on humans to retrieve items, requiring miles of space to accommodate low-slung shelving units. Attabotics’s robots allow clients to stack product closer together and higher up, reducing warehouse space by 85% on average.

CUES FROM NATURE

CEO of Attabotics says he was inspired to build the system while watching a nature documentary about leaf-cutter ants, which build their colonies vertically underground.

As companies’ supply chains and customer bases grow increasingly global, some of the best logistical solutions are being pioneered by nontraditional players. Attabotics robotic systems allows warehouses to move closer to the communities they serve.