Designed for use in the consumer packaged goods, food and beverage and medical
supplies industries as well logistics and retail, CaseFlow orchestrates a fleet of Vecna
Robotics CPJ pallet jack robots to perform all pallet-based travel in a warehouse and direct
human pickers, equipped with connected wearables, with tasks generated from a
warehouse management system (WMS). Using Vecna’s Pivotal orchestration software,
CaseFlow continuously prioritizes orders and optimizes robot routes and picking tasks.
According to Vecna, CaseFlow dynamically adjusts worker picking zones to keep goods
flowing and maximize units picked per hour.
CaseFlow was developed by Vecna Robotics based on work it has done over the past 18
months with transport and logistics provider GeoDis. The project with GeoDis was focused
on increasing case picking productivity by automating both robot travel and human work.
Since deploying CaseFlow at its Indianapolis pilot site, GeoDis has more than doubled
workflow productivity with no reported safety issues, Vecna reported.
Available via an annual subscription service, Vecna said the robots-as-a-service (RaaS)
delivery lowers the cost of entry and enables operators to focus on optimizing case picking
throughput and redirecting labor to more critical workflows in the warehouse.
Benefits of CaseFlow, according to Vecna, include:
- Doubles worker unit per hour performance: Dynamic, directed zone picking
removes the need for manual driving resulting in more than 2x performance
improvement in units picked per hour through orchestration of both human and
robotic work.
- Short ROI payback: With reduced picking workforce required to handle daily
volumes, ROI payback is less than 12 months through the RaaS pricing.
- Fast implementation: Less than 4 weeks to implement and a 50% reduction in new
employee training time (vs. traditional operations) with minimal up-front investment
and no disruption to existing operations; hot swappable robot batteries maintain
continuous goods movement.
- On-site control: CaseFlow Console delivers full control with real-time telemetry
and performance data, empowering operations managers to monitor order releases,
and associate behaviors and robot status in real-time. It also enables industrial
engineers and site managers to identify bottlenecks for future optimizations.
- WMS interoperability: Provides native compatibility with warehouse management
systems from Manhattan Associates, Korber, Blue Yonder, SAP, Oracle, Tecsys and
others.
- Improved safety: Travel-related safety incidents are virtually eliminated with no
need for associates to get on and off trucks, having them focus exclusively on
picking-to-order.
- 24/7 remote monitoring: As with all Vecna Robotics workflow solutions, CaseFlow
features remote monitoring from Vecna Robotics 24/7 Pivotal Command Center.
Read more about the changing face of warehouse automation.
