The Hamburg mail-order company Otto will be relying on autonomously working AI robots in logistics centers in the future. They should be used in the selection, compilation and packaging of individual goods for individual orders and be able to learn using artificial intelligence (AI). To this end, Otto has entered into a strategic partnership with the AI robotics pioneer Covariant from California, as the Otto Group announced in Hamburg on Tuesday. “The vision of this partnership is to install hundreds of Covariants AI-controlled robotic solutions in the Otto Group’s fulfillment centers,” it said. The locations Haldensleben (Saxony-Anhalt) and Altenkunstadt (Bavaria) should make the start.
“Logistics faces the challenge of being as cost-efficient as possible. By using generalist AI, we can rethink our processes in the future and offer an answer to the massive shortage of workers,” said board member Kay Schiebur. “The use of AI will be a key success factor in logistics in the future.” According to Schiebur, Otto sees the use of AI robots as an alternative to shifting goods handling to cheaper locations.
According to Otto, the aim is to “automate time-consuming, manual work” that previously could not be automated. “The challenge is that you are dealing with a dynamic situation – with a huge variety in terms of shape, color and quantity of the goods to be processed,” says the company. The decisive factor for robot-assisted order picking on a large scale is artificial intelligence, which not only makes decisions along predefined paths, but can also deal with unknown situations. (dpa)