IFOY Audit
Finalists undergo the three-stage IFOY Audit as part of the IFOY Audit, which takes place during the TEST CAMP INTRALOGISTICS. This consists of the scientific IFOY Innovation Check, the IFOY Test and the jury test.
Brightpick Autopicker
Brightpick
According to the company, Brightpick Autopicker is the world’s first autonomous mobile picking robot. It is capable of both picking and consolidating orders directly in the warehouse aisles. In contrast to other fulfillment robots, Brightpick Autopicker does not need to travel back and forth to centralized picking stations, which means faster picking and higher throughput.
Product name and company
Brightpick Autopicker – Brightpick
Description
Brightpick Autopicker is a mobile robot that robotically picks and consolidates orders directly in the warehouse aisles.
The robot is like a human with a cart, autonomously picking and consolidating orders as it moves through the warehouse aisles. It uses a patented two-tote design to retrieve storage totes from shelving and robotically picks items into an order tote. In contrast to other fulfillment robots, Brightpick Autopicker does not need to travel back and forth to centralized picking stations.
In addition to in-aisle robotic picking, Brightpick Autopicker can also be used for other tasks such as Goods-to-Person picking (for items that require human dexterity), pallet picking, stock replenishment, dynamic slotting, order consolidation, buffering and dispatch.
The robots can reliably pick ambient and chilled groceries, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, packaged goods, cosmetics, electronics, polybagged apparel and more.
The robots work with standard shelving and totes, enabling fast deployment and easy integration with any warehouse environment, including existing operations and mezzanines.
The entire Brightpick Autopicker fleet and fulfillment process in each warehouse is orchestrated and optimized by Brightpick Intuition software.
Innovations
Every other automated fulfillment solution today works on a Goods-to-Person principle, in which robots retrieve products from storage, bring them to a fixed location for picking, and then return the remaining products back into storage. This results in lots of unnecessary travel for the robots, which slows down the picking process and adds cost.In contrast to other fulfillment robots, Brightpick Autopicker robotically picks and consolidates orders directly in the warehouse aisles. This means it does not need to travel back and forth to centralized picking stations, which means faster picking and higher throughput. All this leads to companies needing fewer robots and labor to fulfill orders, resulting in reduced costs and improved ROI. According to the company, Brightpick Autopicker delivers the lowest cost per pick of any solution on the market.
Brightpick Autopicker is fully patented and powered by proprietary machine vision and AI. Its advanced AI algorithms have been trained on more than 500 million picks to date and use machine learning to improve with each pick.
Market relevance
Brightpick Autopicker enables warehouses to easily automate every stage of their order fulfillment. The main target markets are e-commerce and e-grocery.
The robots are valuable for any warehouse that requires order picking. This includes e-grocery, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, packaged goods, cosmetics, electronics, polybagged apparel, manufacturing and spare parts distribution.
Customer benefits
The key benefits of the Brightpick Autopicker are faster picking and higher throughput, fewer robots for order fulfillment, reduced costs and an improved ROI.
In addition, Brightpick Autopicker delivers the maximum possible labor savings thanks to its robotic picking and automated replenishment capabilities. The Brightpick solution takes just weeks to deploy and enables companies to reduce their picking labor by 98 percent and cut picking costs by half.
Customers such as Rohlik Group, Dr. Max and The Feed (based in the US) are already using Brightpick Autopickers in their warehouses.
Test report
100% developed and assembled in-house − this is what characterizes the Autopicker, the world’s first autonomous mobile picking robot from Brightpick. Brightpick works closely with its sister company Photoneo, founded in 2013, on the Autopicker. Same founders, similar technology: 3D vision, robotics, AI and software for a functioning warehouse execution system. Autopicker installations can now be found in the USA, Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
The start-up Brightpick has only been active with its 180 employees since 2021. Originally founded in Slovakia, the company has since relocated its headquarters to the USA due to the enormous market potential. Around 70 Autopicker devices are already installed on the market. Together with the predecessor models, Brightpick operates around 250 robots in nine installations. According to Brightpick, the savings in labor costs are significantly higher compared to traditional goods-to-person stations, with higher throughput, easier installation and lower costs. The company claims that picking costs have been cut in half.
What’s new about this type of picking: the Autopicker pulls the source container out of the warehouse or the standard rack, which does not require rollers or rails.
While the robot moves on to the next storage location or shelf, it already picks the target container like a human. The robot takes the picked bin to the next storage location. However, this also means that there must always be an empty space available to place the bin in. Autopicker works with a trolley that picks and consolidates orders independently – without any human intervention.
From a technical point of view, the Autopicker uses a patented design with two containers to pull storage totes from the shelf, pick the items using a robotic gripper arm and place them in an order tote.
The big difference to other fulfillment robots is that the Brightpick Autopicker does not have to travel to central picking stations.
Another advantage is its versatility, as it can be used not only for picking in the rack aisle, but also for other tasks such as pallet picking, warehouse replenishment, dynamic storage, order consolidation, interim storage and shipping. And if human dexterity is required for picking, for example, the Autopicker can also be used for normal goods-to-person picking.
In addition, the robots can reliably pick a variety of products, including chilled and non-chilled food, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, packaged goods, cosmetics, electronics or textiles in plastic packaging.
The entire Autopicker fleet and the fulfillment process in the warehouse are orchestrated and optimized by the Brightpick Intuition software.
IFOY Verdict
To summarize, the fact that the actual picking is done while a robot is moving from one location to another without the robot having to return to a “base station” is new and revolutionary. Although an exact measurement during the live assessment at TEST DAYS was not possible, a higher throughput rate and thus a considerable time saving could be confirmed. This leads to a reduction in the number of robots required, which has a positive effect on the return on investment and noticeably reduces picking costs.
IFOY Innovation Check
Functionality / Type of implementation
The Brightpick Autopicker made a technically high-quality impression in the test. The implementation is consistently optimized for high goods throughput, low costs per pick and high utilization of all technical functional components. The combination of the Scara arm with a flexible suction gripper and the system´s linear axis, which is also required for tote handling, ensures reliable separation of a wide variety of items weighing up to 2.5 kg in a wide range of packaging units, even in the refrigerated area. As common nowadays, no master data is required for this.
Novelty / Innovation
The Autopicker is the world’s first successfully commercially deployed robot that retrieves the totes from the stock rack and picks the ordered items directly into the target tote right at the shelf. The sophisticated technical details in the efficient implementation of the handling processes are also very innovative
Customer benefit
Due to the chosen approach, the Autopicker can be put into operation in existing warehouses with shelves up to 4 m high and with any standard containers in a short time of 2 to 4 weeks without any adjustments. The system is compatible with all relevant processes in the warehouse and, in addition to picking goods, can also handle the inbound storage of goods, picking directly from pallets (with a human picker) or the sequencing and consolidation of totes and can therefore be used very flexibly. The robots’ intelligent fleet and recharging management adapts to the warehouse’s utilization curves and also allows selective cooperation with personnel, e.g. for the goods-to-person principle for goods to be picked manually.
Market relevance
The system addresses warehouses with high throughput and response time requirements and is therefore very well positioned for large growth sectors such as e-commerce for food, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. In existing warehouses with standard racking, the system can be used economically from 5000 picks per day with an inventory of 1000 to 30,000 SKUs. The combination of flexibility and a very good ROI of 1 to 2 years makes the Autopicker a good choice for a broad market environment. In addition to direct purchase, a robot-as-a-service model is also offered, which particularly appeals to 3PL providers with short contract terms. It is impressive that 70 robots are already in use at two customers just one year after the market launch.
Verdict
In the growth market of automated warehouse systems for order fulfillment on customer orders, the Brightpick Autopicker, which picks goods directly from the totes at the shelf, represents a genuine technical innovation that is optimized for high goods throughput, the best cost efficiency per pick, short response times and holistic integration into all relevant variants of warehouse processes. The system, which has a high technical quality and a reliable design, is trimmed for simplicity and maximum efficiency in all its functions. It also impresses with its modularity, which allows fast and cost-effective commissioning, reconfiguration or even relocation with maximum flexibility of use in existing warehouses and a robot-as-a-service cost model.
| Functionality / type of implementation | ++ |
| Novelty / Innovation | ++ |
| Customer benefits | ++ |
| Market relevance | ++ |
| ++ very good / + good / Ø balanced / – less / — not available | |
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