Konoike Transport and OSARO Team Up to Pilot Japan’s First Fully Automated Warehouse

Konoike Transport Co., Ltd. and OSARO have teamed up on a new project at the Konoike Institute of Technology Innovation Center (known as KITIC). It will showcase Japan’s first prototype of automated warehouse operations where autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) will work together with picking robots optimized for warehouse and e-commerce applications that involve large SKU inventories.

The pilot will demonstrate automation of logistics processes by linking inVia Robotics’ AMR and OSARO’s piece-picking robot to provide a smooth path from warehouse inventory to packing and shipping operations. The process entails:

• The AMR locates the shelf in the warehouse where the required items are stored
• It then retrieves the correct inventory storage bin and carries it to the pick-and-place robot station
• The picking robot picks the item from the inventory storage bin and places it in a different bin, ready for shipment

The picking robot features OSARO’s advanced AI vision system, which enables the robot to perform advanced pick-and-place operations by recognizing transparent, deformed, reflective, and irregularly shaped items—even if they are randomly arranged in the inventory storage bins.

The displacement of traditionally manual tasks by smart robotics is expected to address the global issues of increasing logistics volume and cope with accelerating labor shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The prototype will prove that tasks such as inventory movement and picking items for order fulfillment can be fully automated. Through this pilot, the partners aim to identify issues that arise when multiple robotics automation solutions are interacting and to resolve these issues ahead of the planned operational deployment.

Watch a preview video of the pilot.

About Konoike Transport Co., Ltd.

The KONOIKE Group is a professional organization that continually challenges itself to solve society’s problems and innovate, going beyond the boundaries of logistics and expanding into manufacturing, medical, airport operations, and more.

About inVia Robotics

inVia Robotics is a robotics company that provides the next generation of warehouse automation solutions. Our system helps e-commerce businesses move products through fulfillment centers much more efficiently with our mobile robots and AI-driven software. It dramatically increases productivity and accuracy and minimizes labor-management — all at a fraction of the cost of traditional automation.

About OSARO

OSARO designs and deploys robotics automation solutions in the materials handling industry using software-defined robotics with advanced machine learning for object recognition and powerful control software. The company’s piece-picking solutions are optimized for e-commerce markets, where key challenges include high SKU inventories, complex packaging, and fragile items requiring delicate handling.