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RightHand Robotics Inc. has hit the bottom operating in 2024. Earlier this yr, it launched RightPick 4, an upgraded model of its piece-picking system that may deal with objects as much as 25% bigger and 50% heavier than RightPick 3.
The Charlestown, Mass.-based company labored carefully with integration partner Vanderlande on most of the new options in RightPick 4. The businesses’ shut partnership is vital to each profitable deployments and future expertise growth, based on David Schwebel, head of gross sales and strategic enterprise growth at RightHand, and Jake Heldenberg, North American head of resolution design for warehousing at Vanderlande.
The Robot Report caught up with Schwebel, Heldenberg, and Paul Eyre, RightHand’s director of channel gross sales, at MODEX final week. They shared insights on trade developments, RightPick’s newest capabilities, and extra.
Finish customers strategy robotics in a different way this yr
So, how has the present been for you?
Schwebel: That is in all probability the best-attended MODEX ever, and it’s really even higher than ProMAT final yr.
What we’re listening to is that we’ve gone previous moments of inspiration and schooling. We’re not within the engagement section. Very often, the folks which can be coming by are saying, “I already belief what I see. I’ve seen the Vanderlande SAR system. I wished to see the brand new options and issues that you just’re doing at RightHand. Now how can I have interaction additional?”
We’re seeing nice experiences and nice collaborations. So, now it’s all about taking their data, understanding their workflows, and discovering the precise people to deliver it throughout to you.
They offered greater than 44,000 rooms in Atlanta this yr, which was about 25% bigger than it was at MODEX two years in the past. And with all that, they’re anticipating greater than 50,000 to 56,000 folks to stroll by the halls.
Eyre: I’m simply arising for air to be sincere, which is nice. What I’m seeing in my conversations is that clients are actually expressing a stage of belief within the expertise. They’re transferring from exploration into engagement with the expertise, and so they actually wish to begin adopting the expertise.
I believe they’re additionally beginning to get into the expertise, to allow them to possibly instruct their integrators that “These are the kinds of applied sciences we’d like to make use of and we’d such as you to undertake.” So, now they’re changing into much more educated and concerned within the decision-making course of slightly than leaving that to integration companions.
And that’s nice for us as a result of they arrive to us, and we’re capable of generate leads and provides them to our integrators first. I’ve had dialog after dialog with finish customers saying, “OK, it’s time to do that. Now present me the place this has been put in beforehand. Present me how I can make use of these applied sciences successfully in my resolution.”
Schwebel: We’re typically listening to that clients held again on investments over the previous three years, and so they’re lastly at a spot the place they must refresh their present environments.
So, between the provision of the capital, the curiosity, and the engagement, we’re experiencing belief with the product. They see it’s de-risked. They see going by the integrator surroundings is completely the precise factor to do. And so they’re replicating what they did about seven to 10 years in the past. So, we’re in that nice crux of “It’s time to interact and interact quick.”
Whereas Vanderlande doesn’t have a sales space, how has it been being all around the present?
Heldenberg: The humorous factor is, I’ve really had extra engagement this yr with no sales space. A variety of instances, you herald your present clients or clients you’re already working with.
Strolling the present has been actually fascinating. The questions I’m getting are extra particular, and persons are saying, “Hey, I’m prepared to speculate.”
Final yr, it was very exploratory. Folks got here right here making an attempt to determine all these new applied sciences, what’s going to learn them. And now, every time I run right into a buyer it’s like, “Hey, we’re prepared. We have to transfer.”
So it has been a really fascinating change and shift for me additionally, simply with the ability to stroll and see all the brand new applied sciences. If we had a sales space, I wouldn’t have lots of time to stroll round. I’ve been capable of go check out all of the totally different new applied sciences — some extra thrilling than others, to be fairly blunt about it.
What has been a few of the extra thrilling stuff?
Heldenberg: We’ve seen autonomous crane robots, or ACRs, come alongside, and the AMR [autonomous mobile robot] expertise has come up. I see that relating to flexibility.
ACR isn’t going to wow you [throughput-wise] but in opposition to a shuttle system. However on a low-capacity system, [it offers] flexibility and the dearth of a single level of failure. I see that’s actually the following expertise that’s going to take off so far as ASRS [automated storage and retrieval systems] goes. That’s what I’ve been most impressed by. In years previous, you’d see it, and it’d nonetheless look just a little clunky, there have been nonetheless stability points. All of that’s getting resolved.
Merchandise-picking points we noticed final yr are already getting resolved. So this yr, even with RightHand, the brand new gripper is lots higher and much more superior. All these new applied sciences which have sprung up over the previous 5 years have gotten extra steady and extra strong. And for me, I see nothing however alternative, particularly for the shoppers.
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What potential clients are in search of
When these clients strategy you, what sorts of metrics are they actually keen on hitting?
Eyre: For me, it’s throughput, throughput, throughput relating to robotics. They’re keen on whether or not the expertise obtainable at present can match or exceed the efficiency of a human. I’m not saying that’s at all times the case, however the expertise is enhancing to a stage the place it’s coming as much as these ranges of matching human efficiency.
This makes issues very, very fascinating for them, as a result of it addresses the problems of labor availability and retention, that are inflicting lots of heartburn. It’s changing into acute in lots of geographies.
Heldenberg: 5 years in the past, the expertise and imaginative and prescient techniques weren’t fairly the place they wanted to be. Like 50% of SKUs have been inaccessible. However now, that we’ve seen extra issues, particularly relating to small bins or odd-shaped objects, will be picked efficiently.
The system can show it may be constant over a 16-hour shift. So, the enterprise case is clearly there. A robotic doesn’t take a break. It doesn’t have to go to the lavatory.
So what we’re seeing as a stage of funding now’s folks saying, “I wish to purchase one or two or three of those bots. Let’s put them in and have stations which can be prepped and prepared as a result of as soon as we show it on these first few cubicles, I would like them into half of the stations.” So efficiency is essential, however it’s additionally efficiency that’s sustained by a whole shift.
Eyre: The vary has elevated considerably. Selecting a wide range reliably actually lends itself to a rise in autonomy. Meaning an absence of intervention or discount of human intervention to resolve expectations inside the robotic station is growing and enhancing considerably yr over yr.
You want very, only a few people to assist a fleet of robots. So autonomy is one thing that you must have KPIs [key performance indicators] for earlier on, and one thing they’re measuring is the extent of human intervention or autonomy.
RightHand reveals off RightPick 4 at MODEX
What are a few of the improvements in RightPick 4, and has RightHand Robotics gotten lots of curiosity in it?
Schwebel: So, successfully by collaboration by each our system integrators coming into our roadmap and a few work that we did with Staples, we packaged that each one collectively right into a full launched product.
This newly launched platform permits us to deal with objects which can be 50% heavier, so as much as 3 kg or 7.2 lb. with no downside. The vary of things that we’re capable of deal with [has grown]. Now, we’re capable of do polybags and attire. This enables us to deal with greater than 70% of all of the several types of objects obtainable in omni-retail and e-commerce.
We’re capable of broaden the dimensions and vary of the setup. The brand new kind of cameras that we’ve got enable us to have a larger surroundings house to work in. So, if I wished to have extra open borders on the identical web site on the identical time, we might. It’s extra frictionless for the system integrators. It actually is an thought the place you may have it arrive on-site and 4 hours later, it’s put in.
We requested Vanderlande to affix our sales space, the place we wish to present a constant workflow loop amongst a number of stations for its clients, from multipack detection to suction-cup swapping, in addition to industrial cameras and spacing. We’re hardening our applied sciences to make them frictionless for purchasers.
Are you able to give some insights about RightPick 4 from the integrator facet of issues?
Heldenberg: So, so far as RightPick 4, we’re enthusiastic about it, that’s what I can say. One of many biggest issues about working with RightHand specifically is that once we come to RightHand with a problem, they actually step up.
We have now vogue clients, and in the end they have been difficult us and saying, “Hey, we have to automate extra. We have to work out how we will enhance productiveness, we’ve got labor challenges, and we will’t rent sufficient folks, particularly throughout peak season.’
And so we challenged RightHand point-blank and stated, “Hey, this can be a problem for us, and we haven’t discovered anybody who can actually efficiently full the duty of automating vogue merchandise choosing.”
We additionally got here again with bisected totes, and RightHand instantly started engaged on the issue. We’re distinctive methods to pair merchandise choosing with new applied sciences and adaptive sequences. For ASRS, software program should be capable of cut up orders, sending some to handbook stations.
Finally, RightHand stepped as much as the plate, and you may see lots of innovation in RightPick 4 and in addition within the software program and imaginative and prescient system enhancements throughout the board. So now we’re way more comfy going into these vogue clients.
With RightPick 4 and lots of the innovation, we recognize it as a result of we all know it comes from the challenges that we and lots of others deliver to RightHand. And that’s the place I noticed RightPick 4 is a good instance of all of these challenges culminating collectively into a great resolution.
