Automation & Digital Transformation

Automatic equipment in a manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, Industrial and Autonomous research robots, Robotic process automation (RPA) and other processes or facilities.

Exotec robots save warehouse workers from walking nearly 30 million kilometres

The distance is equivalent to 37 return journeys to the moon and underlines the power of warehouse robotics in reducing strain on employees.

Official data published by Exotec has revealed that since the company’s first delivered site in 2017, its warehouse robots have covered a distance of 28,791,005 kilometres (17,889,901 miles) – equivalent to 37 return trips to the moon. The Skypod® robots logged over 5 million kilometres (3.1 million miles) at the longest drive site, with an average of 1.75 million kilometres (1.1 million miles) across Exotec’s ten busiest sites.

To date, Exotec’s Skypod robots have completed almost 230 million cycles globally. The company defines one cycle as the act of a robot retrieving a bin, bringing it to a picking station, and returning the bin to storage. A single cycle can account for as many as four orders. Exotec has been experiencing explosive growth since its founding, reaching the first 100 million cycles in five years and only taking one year to complete the second 100 million.

Since delivering its first system to Cdiscount in 2017, Exotec’s Skypod systems around the world have reached a cumulative 425,000 hours of usage time with more than 99% uptime. This is equal to nearly 18,000 days or 50 years spread across 15 countries worldwide. Outside of the European market, the vast majority of Exotec sites are located in the United States and Japan. To date, the largest site the company delivered has over 235,000 storage locations.

“Our rapid growth trajectory clearly reflects the broader trend towards enhancing safety and productivity in warehouse environments,” said Renaud Heitz, CTO and co-founder of Exotec. “It’s rewarding to know we’re making a significant difference in the daily working lives of so many people.”