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Trade Show Review: NRF2024, January, New York, US
e-Grocery event review Food Retailing Omni-Channel Retailing retail retail technology Robotics Robots Trade Show Warehouse WMS
Visit to UK 3PL to view G2P automation deployment
We were kindly invited to Wincanton's Cygnia DC7 warehouse in the UK to see one of their live G2P deployments with Geek+ and experience G2P picking first hand. Whilst robots are always impressive and interesting, what is even more impressive is the decanting strategy (topping up the system) and the processing after a pick has been executed from the shelf pod/robot. In this case, the G2P solution consisted of a G2P AGV system from Geek+, integrated by Invar. The deployment itself was not huge with c.50 robots and c.240 shelf pods. The system included 3 put away ports and 10 pick ports. Each pick port operated...
Trade Show Visit: Parcel + Post 2023
Robotics sortation equipment Trade Show
Parcel + Post (website) is a niche show targeting postal and courier operators, but also attracts larger retailers. The show is held annually at RAI Amsterdam in the Netherlands and is easily accessible from Amsterdam Centraal Station (4 stops). STIQ visited the show for the first time in 2023. LAYOUT The show consists of 3 halls and is a relatively small show. There were about 200 exhibitors, ranging from sortation equipment and conveyor vendors to locker manufacturers (plenty of locker vendors!). Whilst the show is small, it appeared they manage to attract a high calibre clientele or attendees. Or as one exhibitor...
Automation Sector Valuations in Decline. Really? No way!
Acquistions Automation Robotics Robots Warehouse
DECLINING VALUATIONS? REALLY? We recently heard Clearpath Robotics/Otto Motors was acquired by Rockwell (source) and thought that perhaps valuations had been affected by the massive decline in valuation of 6 River Systems. 6 River Systems (link) was founded in 2015 by ex-Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon in 2012) people and was acquired by Shopify in 2019 for $450m (source). In 2023, Shopify's change of strategy led them to divest 6 River Systems for $12.7m (source), representing a 35X value destruction. STIQ's inital thought was that this may affect valuations in the wider automation sector, but it appears the Shopify divestment was viewed as...