3PL warehouse feature

Improving Picking Operations in Your Ecommerce Fulfillment Center

| Brian Barry

Order picking is one of the most important functions in the ecommerce fulfillment center. The customer experience can be a good or bad one based on accuracy and timeliness. Assess your operations to determine how and at what cost changes can be made to processes, technology and automation.

Robot Maker Fabric Raises $110 Million to Fund U.S. Expansion

| Mike O'Brien

Israeli automation startup Fabric, formerly known as CommonSense Robotics, has raised $110 million in a Series B round with plans to accelerate growth in the U.S. including plans to build 14 on-site micro fulfillment centers to enable same-day delivery. The first FC will open in New York in Q1, with several other cities following.

Package Lockers See Strong Adoption in Europe and Asia

| Daniela Forte

While automated package lockers are being used by some major retailers here, they’ve seen greater adoption in other countries, having solved space and retail delivery issues for several years. Here is a look at how they’re being used in some European countries and Japan as a last-mile solution for retailers and a convenience for consumers.

Capabilities, Adoption Growing for Ecommerce Fulfillment Robots

| Mike O'Brien

Ecommerce fulfillment robots are trending up. The entry point for ecommerce companies is now in the hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of multiple millions, and can be scaled up as needed. This report from MCM examines the players, the state of the art, advancing capabilities and results being seen by ecommerce companies.

Locus Robotics, RightHand Robotics Strike Partnership

| Mike O'Brien

Locus Robotics, makers of autonomous mobile robots for fulfillment, and RightHand Robotics, creators of a stationary robotic picking arm, have partnered to work on joint solutions that combine batch picking and conveyance with automated sortation.

Amazon Automating Packaging to Save on Fulfillment Labor

| Mike O'Brien

In an effort to reduce its massive distribution and fulfillment costs, Amazon is implementing packaging automation, much as many other retailers have, while a separate program offers up to $10,000 to help set up Amazon employees willing to flip to delivery contractors.

Locus Robotics Raises $26M in Series C Round

| Mike O'Brien

Andover, MA-based Locus Robotics, spun out of 3PL Quiet Logistics in 2015, has raised $26 million in Series C funding, increasing its total to $66 million. The round was led by the venture arm of mobile scanning and printing technology firm Zebra Technologies and Scale Venture Partners.