SKYPOD SYSTEM FROM EXOTEC

This new system assists in the management of product and material storage in automated warehouses and imporves floor space utilization and does not require manua labor to operate. With the automated robot Skypod they optimize eCommerce in your warehouse.

The company

Founded in 2015 by Romain Moulin and Renaud Heitz, Exotec builds an autonomous robot, Skypod 3d, for fulfillment warehouses that automate the collection and moving of goods inside a warehouse.

The startup’s revenue doubled in 2020 as several new international clients, including Carrefour and Fast Retailing, adopted their technology in key warehousses. In 2019 Exotec and the internationa retail company, Fast Retailing started a new partnership,

The system & Robots

Some experts in the logistics world have said that this system is nowadays the best solution in the actual marketplace in order picking systems for units.

The operation is very simple, is based in shelves, robots and picking stations, only the robots have moving parts, the other components are passive elements, therefore they do not need maintenance and they do not have the chance to be damaged.

It is a vertical solution, the system and the boxes and shelves use the space of the warehouse in a efficient way, they leverage until 12 meters height. The robots themselves, using rails in the shelves, goes up to pick the container and bring to the work station, with the worker.

Another advantge of the system is the power consumption, that are lower than other automatic modes, due to the fact that the robots only weigh 45 kg.

In other words, this company is changing the rules of the game in the logistics of E-commerce companies. With the patented system of going up through the shelves and their robots, they can achieve incredibles times in searching, picking and sending the product to the final consumer. Due to the individuality of each robot, if you business growth you can add more robots, shelves and picking stations.

In the video below, you can see the different advantages and components of the system. Enjoy it!

amazon is testing rivian electric vans in la

Many articles of this blog talk about the big company, Amazon. As you know, this company always use new technologies to improve their process and ways to deliver their products.

In 2019 the CEO Jeff Bezos, announced that Amazon would create a futuristic fleet of 10,000 electric delivery vans with Alexa, and built-in routing software.

Now, in less than 2 years since the announcement Amazon has tested the electric deleivery vans from Rivian in the city of Los Angeles. You can see the real result in the video below.

AIM

This new 100% electric delivery system has created as part of the aim of Amazon to achieve net cero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040.

Amazon wants to reduce the carbon footprint, due to the fact nowadays is one of the most polluting company in the world, in 2019 their CO2 emissions were 51.7 millions of tons of CO2.

The director of Amazon’s global fleet and products, said the electrification effort is a point of pride for the company. This project has required to Amazon to install thousand of electric vehicle chargers and change up the electrical design and layout of delivery facilities in North America and Europe.

RIVIAN ELECTRIC VAN

The actual fleet of vans of Rivian manufactured in Plymouth, Michigan, assure until 241 km with an unique charge. So far we do not know the technical specification of the van performance, so we hope that in the next moths Amazon will give us more information about these wonderfull vans.

NEXT STEPS

Nowadays, there are only 16 units of these vans in the USA cities, there are in test phase. But Amazon have a plan, they will manufacture 100.000 units of vans with the colaboration of Rivian in the next 9 years.

Before the ending of 2022, the first 10.000 units will be available for Amazon, and they will start delivery some products to their customers with 0% of carbon emissions.

NEXT GENERATION OF DHL SMARTSENSOR

GLOBAL OUTLOOK

The smart sensor market is growing at a 19 percent annual rate and is expected to reach 60 billions of $ by 2022. Technological advances have miniaturized and energy efficiency and reduced production costs.

This smart sensors interacts closely in the supply chain, decressing operation costs, increasing asset efficency, improving demand planning and provide critical insight into costumer behavior. Smart sensor increase the level of automated collection and processing data and broaden management visibility across the supply chain to help companies reduce operating cost among.

The smart sensor ecosystem

DHL smart sensor

This SmartSensor protect the load against changes in temperatura, humidity, shock, light even air pressure. With the NFC technology and with an APP in your smartphone you can easily monitoring your load.

SmartSensor give you full visibility of you shipment easier than ever before. There are two types of sensor, passive temperature logger and active multi-sensor logger.

PASSIVE TEMPERATURE LOGGER:

This type of sensor with the NFC technology can be read 10x quicker on a Smartphone than existing UHF RFID devices. The sensor is always monotoring the temperature and the data is globaly available within seconds. These type of sensor can be linked to individual single package, a pallet or container.

ACTIVE MULTI-SENSOR LOGGER

This sensor provide full condition sesing of highly sensitive freight, anytime, anywhere. Near Real-Time visibility gives you instant global data and full condition sesnsing, monitoring temperature and humidity, indicates shock and light events.

LOW STOCK IN EXPENSIVE RENTAL AREAS IN VALENCIA

Personal thoughts

I am from Valencia, and before Covid-19 changed our lives I used to go to the cinema once per week, at the ABC cinemas in Calle Colón in the center of Valencia. When I left the cinema at midnight, I realized that the street was plenty of trucks, unloading mercancy to all the shops of the street.

Analyzing the rental price

First of all, I start doing research about the prices of the rental in Calle Colon and surroundings. The Colon street or “Golden Mile” is the prime zone in Valencia, with 80 €/m2/month to 130 €/m2/month. The avarage surface of the commercial establishments goes since 200 to 400 square meters. For example, to understand the dimension of the number, If you have a store in Colon street with 150 m2 you are paying 15.750 €/month only in the rent.

Decentralized logistic centers / Short restock cycles

All these shops used to have a logistic center in other part of Valencia, commonly in villages near to the city. The price of the square meter in this zones could be 5 times lower than in the city center.

All things considered, it is more profitable for them to pay more to the transport companies to restock two or three times per week. They cannot afford to store many items in their commercial facilities. That facts explain that the majority of the nights Colon street is full of trucks doing unload task to all the stores.

DRUNI example

This is a perfumery store, is allocated near to the Colon street, in an expensive zone too. I was there a few months ago, and I realized that in the stores shelves there was only 2 or 3 items of each cologne.

This store have the logistic center in Alberic, a small village in the south of Valencia. They restock 2 or 3 times per week. With this technique they can offer more vairety of items but in less quantity.

If they run out of a specific product they will check if there are some available in surroundings stores of Druni. This technique allow to have a few but enough product in each store. If you have the bad luck that they do not have the product that you want in any of the near stores, they will ask for the product to the logistic center and in two business days you will have it in the store.

As you can see in the picture, they have many stores in the city center of Valencia, so it is easy to find any kind of druni product.