Sumitomo Drive Technologies, a manufacturer of gearboxes, gearmotors, speed reducers, inverters, and control products for a variety of applications, has chosen autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) from Seegrid as it expands its operations.
The Tokyo-based company said it selected Seegrid’s Palion robots and Fleet Central software to autonomously haul parts and equipment between its existing 250,000ft2 assembly facility and its new 100,000ft2 warehouse.
“Reliability is a critical factor in getting parts to the line—the initial Seegrid Palion Tow Tractor workflow is 3,000 ft. round trip, running up to 30 to 40 times per day,” said Tony Barlett, vice president of business operations at Sumitomo Drive Technologies.
“Seegrid had us up and running in three days—fully trained and confident, our operators immediately identified more opportunities to leverage the technology.”
With labour shortages, wasted travel time, and repetitiveness of tasks, Sumitomo’s operations team sought a way to allow their existing personnel to focus on more valuable activities. To automate this workflow, the company’s facility in Virginia, US implemented a Seegrid Palion Tow Tractor and software.
Seegrid added its AMRs enabled Sumitomo to autonomously move items from its warehouse to its assembly lines, making the trip up to 100 times per day—safely and seamlessly.
Sumitomo integrated Seegrid’s Palion Tow Tractor into its daily material handling workflows to increase productivity and reduce the cost of non-value-added activities. The automotive supplier visually tracks and optimizes the movement of the AMRs in real time with Supervisor, Seegrid’s fleet management software.
The entire fleet of AMRs can autonomously navigate dynamic industrial environments with Seegrid’s IQ technology, which fuses data from cameras, lidar, and machine learning models with its proprietary 3D computer vision system.
“Seegrid combines proven technology with expert automation services to ensure our customers’ automation initiatives deliver ROI from day one,” said Jim Rock, CEO of Seegrid.
“Sumitomo is well-positioned to safely and continuously optimise, adapt, and expand their use of mobile automation as their material handling requirements scale.”
