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As the pandemic continues, cleaning robots are showing up for duty at the office

Fetch Robotics Partners with VARGO® to Introduce Integrated Fulfillment Solution

New solution will combine the power of Fetch’s autonomous mobile robots with VARGO®’s leading warehouse execution software system to enable optimized picking

San Jose, CA, October 22, 2020 — Fetch Robotics, the leader in cloud robotics, today announced a partnership with VARGO®, a leading provider of material-handling systems integration, warehouse execution software and equipment solutions for major fulfillment and distribution centers, to launch an integrated fulfillment solution. The new solution will combine the power of Fetch’s Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) with Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine (COFE®), VARGO®’s industry-leading warehouse execution system (WES), to enable distribution centers to optimize order fulfillment with the latest technology in real time.

The growth of e-commerce and omnichannel fulfillment has pushed companies to optimize their order fulfillment processes to gain efficiencies and to do so with more speed and accuracy. This trend has been further accelerated by COVID-19, which has placed additional strain on distribution centers to increase throughput while keeping employees socially distanced. Many companies have begun applying more automation in their systems in response to this continued pressure and also integrating social distancing into the workflows by dynamically reassigning tasks to specific workers and orchestrating AMR movement. This enables distribution centers to maintain high worker productivity and high worker safety at the same time. 

“Distribution centers today are under more pressure than ever before, both in terms of operational efficiency and worker safety. To contend with steadily growing order volumes and an ongoing labor shortage, distribution and fulfillment centers must embrace smarter technology to keep fulfillment operations running,” said Stefan Nusser, Chief Product Officer at Fetch Robotics. “COFE®’s history of providing system-wide pick optimization and orchestration across different workflows and types of automation equipment makes it a perfect complement to robot-assisted picking.”

The combined solution from Fetch and VARGO® enables a single system to provide optimized piece, batch and case picking workflows with payloads up to 1 1/2 tons for e-commerce, retail distribution and omnichannel operations. The COFE® WES, built on over five decades of warehouse industry know-how, is the only WES that controls all the processes that take place inside a distribution center, from material handling equipment to the devices, people and processes. COFE®’s “pull-based” fulfillment optimization can yield efficiency gains of over 30 percent compared to sites driven by traditional “waved/push-based” warehouse management systems. When combined with Fetch’s AMRs, COFE® can offer further efficiency gains by allowing workers to spend more time picking as opposed to manually moving material throughout a facility and can use insights about overall warehouse operations to improve robot workflows.

“As e-commerce fulfillment operators face ever-increasing pressure to reduce labor and deliver higher levels of production in a more scalable and flexible way, the combination of VARGO® and Fetch Robotics, under this alliance, provides a powerful and compelling fulfillment solution,” said Bart J. Cera, president and COO of VARGO®. “We are excited about our company’s formal alignment with Fetch Robotics to further deliver industry-leading, robust and expansive solutions for the challenges that e-commerce and distribution operations face.” 

About Fetch Robotics
Fetch Robotics is an award-winning intralogistics automation company headquartered in Silicon Valley. By combining autonomous mobile robotics with the power of the cloud, the Fetch Cloud Robotics Platform provides on-demand automation solutions for material handling and inventory management, with the power to find, track, and move almost anything in any facility. Fetch Robotics’ solutions and services are deployed in leading distribution, fulfillment, and manufacturing centers around the world, augmenting workforces to drive increased efficiency and productivity. For more information, please visit www.fetchrobotics.com or follow the company on Twitter @FetchRobotics.

About VARGO®
VARGO® is a team of mechanical and software engineers changing e-commerce operations by designing fulfillment solutions differently than anyone else in the industry. For nearly five decades, VARGO® has worked with manufacturers, distributors and leading retailers — such as American Eagle, Gap, Fashion Nova, Forever21 and numerous 3PLs — to improve their e-commerce operations and material handling systems, increase processing capacities and reduce order cycle times. VARGO® uses its proven, pull-based methodologies to create intelligent solutions for fulfillment centers and continues to be a leader in its industry by integrating robotics and automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) into its solutions. VARGO® is the only company that offers COFE® (Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine), the software that does for fulfillment what Lean did for manufacturing. For more information, visit www.vargosolutions.com.

Fetch Robotics and Piedmont National Partner with PURO Lighting to Launch the SmartGuardUV Autonomous Disinfecting Robot

Leveraging Next Generation Pulsed Xenon UV technology from Violet Defense, the SmartGuardUV robot neutralizes harmful viruses and bacteria in high-traffic areas and provides real-time disinfection reporting

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 16, 2020 — Fetch Robotics, the leader in cloud robotics and on-demand automation, and automated solutions provider Piedmont National today announced the launch of the SmartGuardUV disinfecting autonomous mobile robot (AMR). Purpose built to autonomously disinfect high-traffic areas such as warehouse facilities, retail stores, office spaces and hospital rooms, SmartGuardUV combines the safety and flexibility of the Fetch Robotics cloud robotics platform, the strength of PURO™ Lighting’s pulsed Xenon UV fixtures, powered by Violet Defense™, and the advanced disinfecting reporting of the Piedmont 4Site cloud analytics platform. The result is a completely autonomous, broad spectrum UV disinfection robot that eliminates up to 99.9% of viruses and bacteria with UV-C, UV-B, and UV-A as well as reports on the results of the disinfection.

In an effort to protect employees and customers from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have implemented routine sanitization procedures to eliminate traces of the novel coronavirus from public spaces. As economies are beginning to re-open, warehouses, factories, distribution centers, and other businesses worldwide are putting in place stringent disinfection protocols to bring business back to near normal levels. Current best practice recommends that in addition to thorough overnight cleaning regimens, high-traffic facilities implement spot cleaning procedures to disinfect spaces between shifts, or after large numbers of people have left rooms. The continued spread of COVID-19 as well as the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria has made demand for scalable, effective automated disinfecting solutions higher than ever.

SmartGuardUV leverages comprehensive mapping technology and 3D camera vision to autonomously direct broad spectrum UV light from a pulsed Xenon lamp – the most comprehensive UV-based disinfecting technology worldwide – to disinfect priority areas within a facility. PURO Lighting’s innovative pulsed Xenon UV lamp fixture, powered by Violet Defense technology, enables the miniaturization of high intensity, targeted UV light that requires as little as 90 seconds to disinfect a 10 foot workstation and as little as six minutes to disinfect priority areas of a personal office. The pulsed Xenon UV lamp technology used in SmartGuardUV AMRs has been tested by independent accredited third-party testing labs, and is registered with the EPA.

“The facilities best prepared to protect workers and customers from COVID-19 are taking extreme precautions when it comes to sanitization, and are placing their trust in automated solutions that can be deployed at any time,” said Fetch Robotics Chief Product Officer Stefan Nusser. “Companies of every size recognize the need for reliable sanitization procedures, and SmartGuardUV provides reliable protection at every hour of the day, without taking employees away from their already existing job responsibilities.”

Built on Fetch’s cloud-based robotics platform, SmartGuardUV can autonomously map and navigate throughout a facility, enter a desired space, activate the pulsed UV light for targeted, comprehensive disinfection, reposition in the space for maximum coverage, disinfect, and then move to the next space without any human intervention. The robot’s built-in motion sensor for automatic shut off prevents unnecessary UV exposure, and facility managers can customize the AMR’s schedules and disinfecting paths, even remotely, as facility needs change. SmartGuardUV has an optional real-time dashboard that provides actionable insights and reporting of disinfection data including date, time, location, disinfection duration, cleaning performance and photographic evidence of the disinfection or what prevented the robot from doing the disinfection.

“Legacy autonomous disinfection robotic solutions can only operate for 2 to 2.5 hours on a single charge whereas the PURO pulsed xenon light engines on the SmartGuardUV AMR precisely target UV rays at high touch surfaces so are able to operate for 8 to 10 hours on a single charge,” said John Garlock, CSO of Piedmont National. “We believe this combination of targeted disinfection within a space and longer operational time results in an autonomous disinfection robot that is much more effective than other autonomous robots.”

Today’s announcement comes on the heels of Fetch’s recent release of Breezy One, a chemical disinfection AMR designed for large spaces over 100,000 square feet. Fetch’s disinfecting AMR partners address the full range of disinfection needs –  deep cleaning with the Breezy One and targeted cleaning with SmartGuardUV.

For more information on the SmartGuardUV, please visit http://www.smartguarduv.com/.

About Fetch Robotics
Fetch Robotics is an award-winning intralogistics automation company headquartered in Silicon Valley. By combining autonomous mobile robotics with the power of the cloud, the Fetch Cloud Robotics Platform provides on-demand automation solutions for material handling and inventory management, with the power to find, track, and move almost anything in any facility. Fetch Robotics’ solutions and services are deployed in leading distribution, fulfillment, and manufacturing centers around the world, augmenting workforces to drive increased efficiency and productivity. For more information, please visit www.fetchrobotics.com or follow the company on Twitter @FetchRobotics.

About Piedmont National
Piedmont National Corporation, with 16 locations throughout the U.S., has been a leader in industrial automation and packaging solutions for over 65 years. Piedmont National provides clients with inspired and innovative solutions by engaging a vast network of experts, results-focused engineers, and strategic alignments with industry innovators to serve new and changing customer needs. For more information please visit piedmontnational.com.

Build With Robots, Fetch Robotics and the City of Albuquerque Launch the Breezy One, Autonomous Disinfecting Robot at Albuquerque International Sunport

First autonomous disinfecting robot built for large scale facilities, Breezy One decontaminates a 100,000 square foot space in 1.5 hours using a patented, EPA-registered, U.S. government developed and tested disinfectant

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., June 18, 2020 — Fetch Robotics, the leader in cloud robotics and on-demand automation, Build with Robots and the City Of Albuquerque today announced the launch of the Breezy One disinfecting autonomous mobile robot (AMR).

Designed to protect employees and passengers from both harmful pathogens and cleaning agents, Breezy One can quickly, safely and effectively decontaminate spaces over 100,000 square feet in 1.5 hours with a patented, environmentally safe disinfectant. Breezy One was co-developed with the City of Albuquerque’s Aviation Department, where it autonomously sanitizes the Sunport’s facilities every night in the ongoing fight against COVID-19.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have implemented routine sanitization procedures to eliminate traces of the novel coronavirus from public spaces. Disinfection is a time intensive task for spaces of any size, as every surface – from visible ones like door handles to less-visible areas like the undersides of seats and tables – has to be sanitized in order to fully eliminate the virus. These challenges are multiplied for large scale facilities, which require significantly more manpower and labor costs to sanitize, and which often expose employees to cleaning chemicals which can be harmful in their own right.

The Breezy One autonomous mobile robot is the first solution to offer efficient, hands-free, and safe sanitization specifically designed for large scale facilities. Breezy One can disinfect a 100,000 square-foot facility in 1.5 hours eliminating 99.9999% of viruses and bacteria. The disinfected space can be re-entered in as little as two hours with no harmful residue or risk to employees or passengers.

Co-developed with the City of Albuquerque’s Aviation Department and built in the United States, Breezy One launched earlier this month and has been shown to effectively and safely sanitize the entire airport. The Build with Robots team is able to remotely change the robot’s paths, schedules and frequencies as needs change, thanks to Fetch Robotics’ cloud software and base robot.

“We are pleased to add Breezy One to our team to help keep the entire Sunport community safe. Our custodial staff is one of the best in the nation, and this is a welcomed addition to not only help with our new cleaning and sanitization procedures, but to keep them safe in the process,” said Nyika Allen, Director of Aviation for the City of Albuquerque. “This is one of several measures we’ve put in place to welcome travelers back to the Sunport in a COVID-19 world. We want travelers to know that when they’re ready, we’re ready for them.”

The Sunport is using Breezy One to conduct nightly sanitizing runs to ensure the airport is as clean and safe as possible for passengers and employees each day. The largest commercial airport in New Mexico, the Sunport currently has four Breezy Ones deployed for facility-wide disinfection. Thanks to Breezy One, the Sunport is able to protect custodial staff from tactile exposure to COVID-19 germs and harsh chemicals while also allowing them to focus on providing service and value across the airport rather than spending time on extra sanitization procedures.

“At Build With Robots, our mission is to bring safe, effective and scalable sanitization solutions to the places that will have the biggest impact on both visitor and employee safety,” said Kimberly Corbitt, Build With Robots Chief Commercial Officer. “As the world’s most effective autonomous disinfection robot, we are excited the Breezy One can be deployed to partners like the Sunport where it will keep visitors safe, while also protecting hard-working employees.”

Throughout the design of the Breezy One, a key concern was selecting a disinfectant strong enough to eliminate harmful viruses and bacteria at scale while being safe for employees and passengers to re-enter in a timely manner. Most disinfecting robots either do not have the high rate of elimination of harmful pathogens or require up to 24 hours before entry back into the disinfected space.

“Airports are a heavily trafficked facility, and the Sunport is New Mexico’s largest commercial airport. We have a duty to keep travelers and employees of the Sunport safe and healthy,” said Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller. “Breezy One and the disinfectant developed right here in Albuquerque are two critical pieces to aid in that very important task.”

Breezy One’s disinfectant was originally developed by Sandia National Laboratories for mitigation and decontamination of chemical and biological agents and is one of the strongest and most vetted disinfection agents commercially available. The EPA-registered disinfectant has been tested by nine government agencies and over 10 independent laboratories, is effective against viruses (including the novel coronavirus), bacteria and spores, and meets nationwide hospital requirements for pathogen disinfection.

“Now, more than ever, the top priority for any facility is to ensure the health and safety of employees and customers,” said Melonee Wise, Fetch Robotics CEO. “Through our work with the Build with Robots team, we were able to move from product conception to commercial deployment in only three months, a timeline that reflects the urgency of the challenge and the world class team responsible for the robot itself.”

For more information on the Breezy One, please visit https://buildwithrobots.com/breezyone/.

About Fetch Robotics
Fetch Robotics is an award-winning intralogistics automation company headquartered in Silicon Valley. By combining autonomous mobile robotics with the power of the cloud, the Fetch Cloud Robotics Platform provides on-demand automation solutions for material handling and inventory management, with the power to find, track, and move almost anything in any facility. Fetch Robotics’ solutions and services are deployed in leading distribution, fulfillment, and manufacturing centers around the world, augmenting workforces to drive increased efficiency and productivity. For more information, please visit www.fetchrobotics.com or follow the company on Twitter @FetchRobotics.

About Build With Robots
Build With Robots is a New Mexico-based developer and distributor of industrial robots. The company’s proprietary robotic systems are used by organizations in the logistics, construction and entertainment industries. For more information, please visit https://buildwithrobots.com/.

About the Albuquerque International Sunport
Owned and operated by the City of Albuquerque’s Aviation Department, The Albuquerque International Sunport is New Mexico’s largest commercial airport, welcoming over 5 million passengers each year. Served by 8 major carriers, the Sunport offers non-stop service between ABQ and more than 20 destinations, all with worldwide connectivity. The Albuquerque International Sunport is the Gateway of New Mexico. For more information, please visit www.abqsunport.com or follow the Sunport on social.

Contact Information

Mission North for Fetch Robotics
Fetch@missionnorth.com

Albuquerque International Sunport
505-433-1286
info@abqsunport.com

Fetch Robotics Launches Workflow Builder to Provide Instant Warehouse Automation

Fetch Robotics Launches Workflow Builder to Provide Instant Warehouse Automation

Drag-and-drop automation toolkit enables deployment in days, iteration to perfect workflows, and integration if required

San Jose, Calif., March 2, 2020–Fetch Robotics, the leader in cloud robotics and on-demand automation, today announced the immediate availability of Workflow Builder, the company’s new drag-and-drop development toolkit that allows customers to implement flexible automation in existing manufacturing, distribution and fulfillment facilities without the time, expense, and inflexibility of fixed automation or traditional autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Based on Blockly, the language used to teach non-programmers to code, Workflow Builder provides a visual and intuitive tool that customers can use to deploy flexible automation in days, iterate to perfect workflows, change workflows as needs evolve, and later integrate into WMSs (warehouse management systems), WESs (warehouse execution systems), or fixed automation — and do all of this in-house without having to rely on third-party resources.  

Workflow Builder was created as a simple to use, on-demand alternative to fixed warehouse automation solutions or traditional AMR solutions. Fixed automation solutions require the expense and time of a third party for design, installation and maintenance. Fixed automation solutions are also difficult and costly to modify, making it challenging for warehouse managers to adapt to changing business needs or workflows. Traditional AMR solutions often require facilities to be modified, floors to be labeled with QR codes, and integration with a WMS is immediately required as part of the implementation. While these solutions can be impactful, they are expensive and time consuming to deploy, and often lead to workflows that can’t be updated or changed without extensive outside support.

Workflow Builder removes these pain points by allowing customers to design, implement, and redesign their own custom automation workflows using Fetch’s AMRs, removing the need for any third-party integration work and saving both time and cost. With a simple, easy-to-use automation development environment that requires no coding, Workflow Builder gives customers a platform that enables them to develop and deploy their own automation in days, and continue to iterate on workflows as business needs change or are added. When paired with Fetch’s RaaS (Robots-as-a-Service) cloud-based business model, Workflow Builder allows companies to see ROI almost immediately, modify workflows until perfect, and then complete the integration work later if desired. 

“Our customers have long desired to get the richness of integration without the onerous requirement of actually having to do the integration,” said Melonee Wise, CEO at Fetch Robotics. “We are excited to introduce Workflow Builder and empower our customers to quickly deploy automation in their facilities and iterate the workflows until perfect. Workflow Builder allows even the most risk-averse organizations to feel confident with their investment in money and time.” 

Although Workflow Builder is used for device, WMS, and WES integration, it is not dependent on the use of a WMS or WES, and does not require an integrator, giving the customer full control over their facility in both the short- and long-term. It can be deployed with WMS-related workflows such as picking and putaway, or workflows completely outside the WMS such as pack station replenishment, empty tote return or recycling removal. Additionally, Workflow Builder “partner blocks” also enable customers to use the same drag-and-drop automation development with devices such as barcode scanners, RFID detection devices, mobile printers, and network buttons so that there is no custom coding required to support these types of devices. Since Fetch provides over-the-air updates to AMRs, new partner blocks can be added and used right away without anyone having to visit the customer’s facility. 

“Workflow Builder fundamentally changes the way we can manage our warehouse automation,” said Lee Weisenberger, Managing Director of IT at Universal Logistics. “With Workflow Builder, all we have to do is drive a robot around the facility to map it, lay out workflows, “drag and drop” device triggers into workflows, and then deploy the AMRs. We can easily change workflows or add new workflows on our own. Workflow Builder puts the power and control back in the hands of the customers instead of being held hostage by months and millions of dollars of outside integration work.”

About Fetch Robotics

Fetch Robotics is an award-winning intralogistics automation company headquartered in Silicon Valley. By combining autonomous mobile robotics with the power of the cloud, the Fetch Cloud Robotics Platform provides on-demand automation solutions for material handling and inventory management, with the power to find, track, and move almost anything in any facility. Fetch Robotics’ solutions and services are deployed in leading distribution, fulfillment, and manufacturing centers around the world, augmenting workforces to drive increased efficiency and productivity. For more information, please visit www.fetchrobotics.com or follow the company on Twitter @FetchRobotics. 

Fetch Robotics Expands TagSurveyor to Provide Customers with Real-Time Inventory Visualization

Powerful new RFID visualization capabilities allow 3PLs, manufacturers and retailers to autonomously capture, and then analyze and visualize inventory data in the cloud

San Jose, Calif., December 17, 2019–Fetch Robotics, the leader in cloud robotics, today announced new unique capabilities for TagSurveyor, the robotic RFID solution that allows customers to gain complete visibility of assets in their fulfillment centers, distribution centers or warehouses via visualization of inventory data on a facility map. With the ability to autonomously and continuously capture RFID data, TagSurveyor allows customers to fine-tune their inventory planning with more up to date and accurate data in order to operate leaner and more efficiently.  

Ensuring accurate inventory counts is a key concern for distribution and fulfillment centers, which stand to lose over a trillion dollars due to poor inventory management practices that result in lost or misplaced items. Traditionally, warehouse managers have relied on physical counts, in which associates scan individual items to create a numerical record of items in the warehouse. These physical counts, which require hours of manual work and demand high labor costs, often result in inaccurate data collection and fail to collect location-specific information. As a result, warehouse managers only see the number of items instead of their location throughout the warehouse, leading to unnecessarily high inventory levels, wasted man hours looking for inventory and dollars lost in expedites, re-orders and write-offs.

Fetch’s TagSurveyor is a cloud-enabled inventory management solution designed to improve inventory tracking, increase accuracy and save customers time. The TagSurveyor robot uses powerful RFID technology along with robot localization in a facility to gain a complete view of the warehouse and its assets, returning valuable insights to customers through the cloud. With its built-in localization capabilities, TagSurveyor geotags all items with their location in the warehouse to create sophisticated visualizations of the entire facility. With TagSurveyor, customers can increase inventory counts and checks from once-a-month to multiple times per day to provide autonomous insights.

“Distribution and fulfillment centers are becoming more data-driven, but most facilities still lack basic information such as up-to-date inventory counts. Fetch is developing a full suite of robots to provide new levels of insights into warehouse operations and workflows, and TagSurveyor is our most specialized solution to date,” said Fetch Robotics Vice President of Products Stefan Nusser. “With Fetch’s cloud platform, customers already using Fetch robots can add a TagSurveyor with no additional effort, and can outfit their facilities with any of Fetch’s broad range of AMRs to help them find, track and move anything from parts to pallets.”

Once deployed in a facility, TagSurveyor allows customers to see the difference in inventory levels or movement of assets, making it easy to analyze changes, additions or removals since the last survey. Specifically, customers can overlay on a map of their facility assets that were supposed to be in a location that are no longer there, assets that are in a location that are not expected, or the movement of an asset from one location to another in a facility. Given the quickly evolving nature of warehouse needs, Fetch customers can deploy the TagSurveyor on an as-needed basis through Fetch’s Robots-as-a-Service model, which allows companies to scale effectively as the business grows. 

About Fetch Robotics

Fetch Robotics is an award-winning intralogistics automation company headquartered in Silicon Valley. By combining autonomous mobile robotics with the power of the cloud, the Fetch Cloud Robotics Platform provides on-demand automation solutions for material handling and inventory management, with the power to find, track, and move almost anything in any facility. Fetch Robotics’ solutions and services are deployed in leading distribution, fulfillment, and manufacturing centers around the world, augmenting workforces to drive increased efficiency and productivity. For more information, please visit www.fetchrobotics.com or follow the company on Twitter @FetchRobotics.

Media Contact

Bateman Group
fetch@bateman-group.com

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