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Imaging & Machine Vision: Gift of Sight

Bruce Welty talks with Imaging and Machine Vision about how advances in robot guidance and integrated vision systems are making fully automated warehouses a reality.

solve_magazine_winter_2017

SOLVE Magazine: Robots transform business

“ One thing I know is that robots can provide a better way, a faster way, and a cheaper way,” says Bruce Welty, chairman of Locus Robotics. “In business, there are very few times you can attack all three areas.”

bostonglobe

Will Trump hit the pause button on progress?

“By definition, if you improve workers’ productivity, you’re affecting the labor base,” says Bruce Welty, chairman of Locus Robotics, a Wilmington startup that builds robots to transport items in warehouses. “We could get to full employment if we just got rid of all the bulldozers and backhoes, but I’m not sure we want to do… Read more »

fastcompany

These Are The Robots Who Are Fulfilling Your Christmas Orders

“We decided that with our robot solution you’d make it so you didn’t have to disrupt anything at all,” Locus founder and chairman Bruce Welty says. “All you have to do is put this little sticker—we call it a locus point—basically a barcode you want anywhere you want the robot to be able to navigate.”

rbr

Logistics Robots From Locus Roll Out Amid Holiday Rush

“Because of changes in the supply chain due to e-commerce and the need to ship massive amounts of single items in large quantities, we expect labor shortages to continue, and there is a huge demand for robots,” said Bruce Welty, chairman of Quiet Logistics Inc. and Locus Robotics Corp.

DC Velocity

How Robots will Transform the Warehouse

A warehouse designed for robots needs different “amenities” than one designed for people. Here are a few things to consider when going robotic.

l-bostonglobe

5 Things You Should Know About Bruce Welty

Bruce Welty never wanted to build robots; Amazon.com made him do it. Starting in the 1970s, Welty, 60, specialized in software for managing warehouses. In 2009, he shifted gears and founded Quiet Logistics, a company that used robots from Kiva Systems of North Reading to dramatically reduce warehouse operating costs. But three years later, retailing… Read more »

Robotics & Automation News

Logistics Robots: The Way You Move

“Locus is unique in that it works with and complements existing warehouse infrastructure. This dramatically reduces the overall investment required to deploy our solution.”

Motherboard

The Future of Robot Labor is Unfolding in Shipping Warehouses

The Locus bot tells a worker exactly where an item is, and all they have to do is give it to them. It then knows to bring it back to another area for packaging. The best part is that they are able to see and avoid people and other objects in their way.

Business Insider

Robots Are Invading Big Box Stores and Want to Help You Shop

Robots are taking over stores and warehouses. They’ll greet you at the hardware store, and help you find a nail. Or they’ll grab your goods off the shelf at a distribution center and perhaps put it on a drone to your door.

Bloomberg

How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race

“Warehouses are very high tech places,” said Bruce Welty, co-founder and chairman of Locus Robotics, a firm that’s developed bots to work alongside, rather than replace, human workers. “Because the only way you can take costs out is automation.”

60 Minutes

Locus Featured on 60 Minutes Australia

“Industries centered on repetitive tasks are already being transformed.” This clip offers a peek into a warehouse using Locus robots. Locus founder Bruce Welty talks about how the robots work side by side with workers and explores the questions that arise in an era of such technological progress.

2016 MassTLC Awards Finalist

Locus Named Finalist in 2016 MassTLC Awards

This award recognizes an innovative technology that has had a significant impact on the company, customer and/or market in the category of robotics, including: sensors, manipulators, and systems. Click though to learn more about MassTLC technology leadership awards.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive

The Case for Warehouse Automation

Locus Robotics offers mobile autonomous robots that can go anywhere in the warehouse. “The collaboration between robot and worker dramatically improves efficiency. The associate completes the pick faster and is thereby able to complete more pick requests. With our robots, workers are able to pick faster and more productively than with traditional manual picking.”

Forbes

Drones and Robots in the Warehouse

Locus robots work well in warehouses with a wide variety of stock keeping units (SKUs) that are picked in eaches – in other words e-commerce warehouses. These floor level associates often walk 12 to 15 miles per day. What used to require 8 hours of work, can now be done in less than an hour.

Materials Management and Distribution

Disrupters or Transformers?

The more agile and responsive robots become, the more useful they are in environments where they need to interact with human workers. As well, in a distribution center environment, where the majority of tasks are repetitive, simple and often physically demanding, the advantages of a tireless worker who won’t get bored are clear to see.

Material Handling & Logistics

Young Tech Companies Out to Change Supply Chain Management

Warehouse Robotics:  Locus Robotics, a Massachusetts based start-up, recently  put their product on the market and it is being used within its sister company’s (Quiet Logistics) fulfillment operations. Associates scan, then place items into totes placed upon and transported by the robots.

Business Insider

Robots are infiltrating retail

Warehouses have also started to use robots connected to the Internet to transport goods. Citi estimates that Amazon has 30,000 robots in use in 13 warehouses. And the new e-commerce robotics company, Locus Robotics, is deployed by Quiet Logistics, the third-party logistics provider for major fashion brands including Zara and Bonobos.

Inbound Logistics

Warehouse Makeover: Blueprint for Change

Inbound Logistics roundup of leading warehouse robots. This excerpt was made possible in cooperation with Brandstyle Communications and Inbound Logistics.

Lux Capital

Is the Robo-Tail Wagging the Dog?

How does your robot fit into the big picture? How can roboticists and potential customers work together given the current cost and performance limitations of robotics toward accelerating their adoption in the workplace?

Supply Chain Brain

In The Know: The Frontiers of Warehouse Automation

Advances in software and hardware, spurred on by economic trends, new customer demands and a persistent labor shortage, are transforming the way in which goods are handled within distribution centers.

KBA

Robots in the Warehouse

Humans continue to handle the manual selection of items in the picking zones, but the [Locus] robot eliminates much of the travel between pick areas and docks. Furthermore, features of the robot are designed to make the order pickers’ job easy and relatively foolproof.

The Robot Report

The technology gap left by Amazon’s acquisition of Kiva Systems

Locus Robotics, a Massachusetts-based company founded specifically in answer to the Kiva situation by a Kiva-using DC owner, uses a fleet of robots integrated into current warehouse management systems to provide robotic platforms to carry picked items to a conveyor or to the packing station thereby reducing human walking distances and improving overall picking efficiencies.

Supply Chain Digest

Locus Named Top 3 Coolest New Solutions at MODEX 2016

The picker in effect meets the robot at a pick location, sees the pick on an iPad screen, and after the pick the robot either goes to packing or the next pick for the order. Huge traffic at the booth.

2016 RBR 50 Company

Press Release: Locus Robotics Named Top Robotics Company to Watch in 2016

Robotics Business Review received nominations from companies in over 11 countries, ranging from large conglomerates to lesser-known startups. The 2016 RBR50 represents the most dynamic robotics companies that are indicative of where the global robotics industry is headed.

Tech Insider

These warehouse robots can boost productivity by 800%

“We developed a system where the robots do all the walking,” Locus Robotics CEO Bruce Welty tells Tech Insider. “As retailers continue to exceed expectation around next-day shipping, they’re going to look to technology to help them provide an even faster turn-around.”

Forbes

Cheaper and More Nimble Than Amazon’s Kiva

Locus CEO and cofounder Bruce Welty says the best way to think about the LocusBot is that it’s like having taxis or an Uber, as opposed to an inflexible subway system, to get from one point to another.

Beta Boston

Robot Maker Locus Aims to be the Next Kiva

Locus Bots currently roam the floors at one of Quiet Logistics’s warehouses, and they’re trimming down the time employees spend carrying goods from shelves to shipping areas.