robots conquered Promat. The Supply Chain and Logistics trade show is a perfect microcosm of where the industry is headed. Many of the show’s main attractions have moved from center stage to the physical margins of the show floor. Meanwhile, competitors such as 6 River Systems and Locus are taking center stage. My interview took place in his upstairs conference area in a huge booth.
Among other things, this has proven to be the ideal environment to speak with the founders and executives of some of the biggest players in the field.Jerome Dubois has worked on both of these boxes as co-founder of 6 River Systems. and is Vice President of Shopify Logistics after the e-commerce giant acquired the robotics company in 2019.
We talked about Amazon’s role in Amazon’s foundation and the future of robotic picking and interoperability.
TC: What is Six River Story?
JD: I’ve been in this industry for 25 years. Since we started on the software side, the warehouse management system — [at] A company called Yantra, now part of IBM. In 2008 he joined Kiva. It’s been there through acquisitions.I [Locus CEO Rick Faulk’s] My predecessor, Bruce Welty, was a customer of mine. I was the one who told Bruce, “I’m shutting down your system.”
A small world within a small world.
yes. But we have great respect for that team. Between Locus and us, we are his two leaders in this field. Fetch is probably a third behind him.
Both you and Fetch have been acquired.
yes. Acquired in 2019. Acquired Fetch [in 2021].
Why was it the right move? Have you ever thought about an IPO or moving in another direction?
We were doing well when we were raising money in 2019. But Shopify presents itself and says: I want to build a logistics network. We need technology like yours to make it happen. we have the right team. You know space. Let’s see if this works. “
What we can do is leverage the huge investment from Shopify to grow the company. We were about 120 employees at 30 locations. Today, we have 420 employees and over 110 locations worldwide.
Amazon buys Kiva to block third-party access to robots. It must have been a discussion with Shopify.
in advance. “If that’s the plan, we’re not interested.” We hit a strong positive trajectory. We had strong investors. Everyone was really bullish. It’s not. it was the opposite. Operates independently of Shopify. We will continue to invest and grow our business.
From a business standpoint, Amazon’s decision to cut off access to gain an advantage is understandable. What good does Shopify do if someone can still deploy your robot?
Shopify’s motto is very different from Amazon’s. I’m in charge of Shopify’s logistics. Shopify is a brand behind a brand, so it has relationships with merchants and customers. Building the right tools to make it easier for merchants to succeed is key. Supply chains are a big problem for many merchants. Shopify makes it easy for you to print shipping labels because the first thing you sell must be fulfilled.
Now, if you have to produce 100 shipping letters in a day, you can’t do it yourself. Shopify has built its fulfillment network using many third parties. Our technology is the backbone of your warehouse.
Your technology was built for brownfield structures.
exactly. Just implement it with technology. You can enter an existing customer warehouse without changing anything. This allows for a very quick implementation timeframe. That’s one of the big benefits. We achieve twice that productivity in a matter of weeks, as opposed to having to clean out the building and start fresh with a new system.
But if you want to go greenfield, you can start from scratch and really build around technology.
That is correct. Perhaps 10% of the installed base is greenfield.
If you’re looking at Locus or Fetch, they more or less maintain the form factor. Clearly, Amazon is diversifying. For many of these customers, the ideal robot is one that is not only mobile and autonomous, but actually does the picking itself. is this what you are looking for?
Most of the AMR (autonomous mobile robot) scene has reached the point where hardware is commoditized. Robots are generally pretty reliable. Some may be of higher quality than others, but most important is the workflow being enacted by these robots. is actually built in. It’s not just a generic robot that comes in and does something. We know we need to do batch picking and sorting, so we can integrate it into our workflow very quickly. It knows you want careful order picking. These are all predefined and pre-filled workflows in the solution.
I’ve been on the record for a long time when it comes to solving grabbing and picking, and it’s a really hard problem. I’m not sure whether choosing e-comm or choosing from the trash is the right place for that solution. If you think about the infrastructure required to solve using a robot to grab a pink shirt in a dark hallway versus grabbing a blue shirt, it’s not working right now. That’s why the product-to-person makes more sense in that environment. I think if you try to use an arm like a Kiva-like solution or a shuttle-type solution where the inventory is brought to the station and there’s lighting there, the arm will work.
Are you investing R&D in issues like this?
Not the picking side. The total addressable market world — between Locus, us, Fetch, etc. as a whole — is probably 5% penetration. I think we’ll have plenty of opportunities to go elsewhere and implement a lot of the tech.
Interoperability is an interesting conversation. No one builds robots for all use cases. If we want to approach full autonomy, we will need a variety of robots.
It will never fit 100% of the picks inside the building. For the 20% that we don’t do, you still get all the benefits of the admin console, training, and stuff like that. [the mobile fulfillment application]And it’s not just about choosing. Pick up, clean up, whatever. This is the first step for us in terms of proving wall-to-wall functionality.
What does interoperability look like beyond that?
We are currently working on system interoperability. In the field, we are constantly working with automation systems. This is an important part of interoperability. It conveys important messages about how big boxes should be built and in what order they should be built.
When you’re independent, focus on portability. Does being acquired by Shopify change that pressure?
The difference with Shopify is that we can think longer term in terms of doing the right thing without investor pressure. It was one of the advantages. We offer many long term software bets.
