Key Appointments

We marked our commitment to sustained growth by hiring Leilani Noel as Director of HR and Talent Acquisition. We grew our European presence by hiring Juergen Heim as European Sales Director and Simon Jones as Head of Sales for the UK and Ireland. Industry veteran Royanna Chappell was also promoted to U.S. Sales Director, West Region. 

Expanded Fleet

We doubled our total deployed robots from 2018. New US customer sites include Legend Valve, Bodybuilding.com and Distribution Management. 

“The growth and innovations we accomplished this past quarter are a result of a relentless obsession with our customer’s success and a laser-focus on optimizing solutions for their operations,” said Jerome Dubois, our co-founder & co-CEO. “We are changing fulfillment with an easy-to-deploy solution that can more than double productivity and improve accuracy.” 

New Products and Integrations

We launched two new products that extend our offering into a complete end-to-end order fulfillment solution: Fast Lane and Packout.

Launched in partnership with Soft Robotics at CSCMP Edge, Fast Lane is a component of our end-to-end solution that fully automates high-velocity SKU fulfillment. Fast Lane seamlessly merges into the manual picking process without requiring major changes to infrastructure. The solution combines Chuck with Soft Robotics’ full stack bin picking and order fulfillment solution, SuperPick.

Deployed at Ingram Micro, Packout is a component of our solution that manages order packing in tandem with Chucks to help operations achieve the greatest pick-to-pack throughput possible. We increased our technology integrations by partnering with Accutech Packaging, adding auto-bagging capabilities into the Packout solution to improve the precision and efficiency of our customer’s labor efforts. 

For more information on our latest news and announcements, click here.

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E-commerce and retail sales continue to grow each year, yet warehouse operators struggle to find and recruit enough warehouse associates to keep up with the work. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that U.S. warehouses need to hire an additional 452,000 workers between 2018-19 amid record-low unemployment nationwide, just to meet the growing demand. Mobile Sort is designed to help operators rise to meet peak demands and challenges.

“Each-picking operations are under bigger-than-ever market pressure to pick faster and scale for peak seasons with fewer seasonal hires,” Jerome Dubois, 6RS co-CEO and co-founder said. “6 River Systems’ Mobile Sort improves throughput with a picking and sorting solution that is mobile and flexible, helping operators who are crunched for time, capital and resources balance performance and cycle times.”

Mobile Sort stations consist of smart kiosks, mobile put-to-light walls with validation sensors that work with 6RS’ cloud-based software and 6RS collaborative robots, called “Chucks.” 6RS’ intelligent allocation engine continuously generates highly optimized batches of work which group orders into the most efficient picking jobs, minimizing walking. Chucks deliver empty totes to associates in active picking areas and direct associates to complete picks. Totes are then delivered to take-off points, where they are sorted into orders using the Mobile Sort stations.

Equipped with product images and put lights, Mobile Sort stations further assist associates to sort items into customer orders at industry-leading speed and accuracy. The entire solution, from robots to sortation and packout stations, is powered by 6RS’ machine learning that drives efficient picking and system performance. Not only does Mobile Sort improve pick rates, but it is also used to consolidate picks across different areas or automation into discrete orders; for example across mezzanine levels or from goods-to-person automation solutions.

“Mobile Sort is quick to setup and break down, and doesn’t require any permanent infrastructure,” Gillan Hawkes, 6RS VP of Product said. “Unlike traditional automation, Mobile Sort can be easily scaled up or down to handle seasonality and to reclaim precious floor space.”

With the addition of Mobile Sort, 6RS extends the value that their solutions offer customers—from their collaborative mobile robots, to order allocation, picking, sorting and pack-out. These solutions address existing gaps in the market today, specifically for third party logistics, B2B, fast-growing e-commerce and omni-channel retail operations.

“Autonomous mobile robots have done a great job of attacking the low-hanging fruit in fulfillment processes— movement of material” said John Santagate, Research Director for Commercial Service Robotics at IDC. “As the innovative vendors in this space have begun to scale deployments, they are now also developing complementary products that extend the value of the AMRs in the fulfillment process. Mobile Sort from 6 River Systems is a good example of an AMR vendor extending the capabilities and value of their products and offerings”.

The Mobile Sort solution will be deployed across leading 3PL and retail warehouse operations in time for peak 2019.

Attending ProMat 2019? Schedule time to view a demonstration of Mobile Sort from April 8-11 at Booth #S3983.

About 6 River Systems

6 River Systems was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2015 by Jerome Dubois, Rylan Hamilton and Chris Cacioppo. Jerome and Rylan were previously executives at Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics). The 6 River Systems engineering team has decades of automation, software and operations experience and has designed, built and deployed the world’s largest warehouse automation solutions. Leading 3PLs, retailers and manufacturers including DHL, GXO Logistics and Office Depot are using 6RS to fulfill millions of units a week.

6 River Systems is supported by world-class venture capital firms and strategic investors, including Menlo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Eclipse and iRobot. Amy Villeneuve, former president and COO of Kiva Systems, is a member of the board.

More media

Mobile Sort Photo Gallery

Mobile Sort Video Demo

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“We are humbled by this award, which comes directly from educated readers in the materials handling industry,” said Rylan Hamilton, co-CEO of 6 River Systems. “Thanks for placing your faith in us and the larger field of collaborative robotics.”

The companies championing Chuck

There is no award without our customers. One of our core values at 6 River Systems is we win when our customers win. We’ve been humbled to see their wins and celebrate gains with our collaborative robots. In fact, in the days following Black Friday, 6RS sites picked a million units with Chuck—a first for the entire industry.

We’d like to shout-out some of our newest customers:

ACT Fulfillment

ACT Fulfillment, Inc. has been providing supply chain solutions in warehousing and fulfillment services since 1994. ACT wanted to invest in an adaptable robotics solution that could be deployed quickly for one of their high profile accounts. ACT was one of the first companies to deploy a 3-level Chuck, which the 3PL uses for their shoe fulfillment business.

Meet Chuck, the collaborative mobile robot from 6 River Systems.

Healing Hands

Healing Hands develops and produces fashionable scrubs for nurses, woven to provide ultimate comfort and long-lasting performance. The business has more than 8,000 SKUs and a million units in its new 60,000 sq ft warehouse in East Rutherford, NJ. Initially the company looked at traditional warehouse automation but after doing some research decided that 6 River Systems collaborative robots best suited their business needs. The team plans to use the robots to achieve their goal of same-day shipping.

CSAT Solutions

CSAT Solutions is a Dell EMC Services Partner. CSAT Solutions was recently recognized by Dell EMC at the annual SDS Service Partner Forum, where they were granted the Global Service Parts Partner Excellence award for 2018. By incorporating Chuck robots within the CSAT parts warehouse and part fulfillment area, CSAT has doubled productivity by significantly reducing the use of manual cart picking.

Medline

6 River Systems is now in the business of supporting companies that save lives. Medline is a global manufacturer and distributor of medical products with patient-centered solutions, services and expertise across the continuum of care.

These companies and others are just a few of the many looking for a new way to automate their operations.

“Companies in new industries are increasingly looking towards collaborative robots as a way to inject flexible automation into their operations” says John Santagate, Worldwide Research Director at IDC for Commercial Service Robotics. “The market has done a great job of building collaborative robots that meet specific needs across a variety of industries. Especially in material handling industries, where non-value adding movement of materials has been a target for improvement for decades”.

The year in Chuck

As 2018 comes to an end, we’re taking time to reflect on this year’s product highlights, including new features and configurations that enhance our customers’ fulfillment capabilities.

Here’s a quick 2018 recap:

• Introducing Chuck+, a wider version of Chuck that fits even more orders than its predecessor.
• New Chuck configurations that provide greater flexibility to fulfillment operations, including three-level Chuck and support for garment on hanger and shoe fulfillment.
• Handy features like autonomous charging, floor view (which enables operators to see where robots are in the warehouse in realtime) and management consoles, where operators can view detailed analytics on their system.

We’ve got plenty in store for 2019, including a rigorous industry event and trade show schedule, along with some big product announcements. Stay tuned! In the meantime, check out our most popular video of the year, “The magic cart.”

About 6 River Systems

Today’s buying habits have changed the world of fulfillment forever. Customers demand better service but operators are stuck in the trenches, fighting today’s problems with yesterday’s tools. 6 River Systems knows that fulfillment is key to customer satisfaction. Starting with Chuck, a collaborative mobile robot, 6 River Systems is building fulfillment solutions that power the winning warehouses of tomorrow.

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