Flipkart deploys 100 AGVs at its Soukya Sortation Center in Bangalore
CoE for Robotics & Automation to bring engineering, product, and automation teams together
Walmart-owned Flipkart has deployed 100 Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) at its Soukya sortation center in Bangalore. The setup can process up to 4,500 shipments in an hour and can be scaled over 5 times with few changes.
The Soukya facility has around 1000 employees at present and processes lakhs of shipments a day. The AGVs will work in conjunction with facility staff, who will be trained in operating them. The 100 self-guided bots automatically sort packages to the right customer pin-codes by identifying encoded information on each package.
“It will enable better throughput from an existing facility, removing the need for space expansion, and will enable the current manpower allocated to the task to be up-skilled to do higher value-adding work — all at similar or lower cost,” read a communiqué from the company. According to the company, tests indicate that deploying 100 of these AGVs can lead to over 60% increase in process efficiency. These AGVs can be easily moved across locations as well.
The company also plans to build a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Robotics & Automation, focusing engineering, product, and automation teams under one umbrella. Some future mandates for the CoE will be further automation, IoT, electric vehicles etc. This will help continue building India-specific solutions, hiring talent, and incorporating affordable automation into the business model. Flipkart also plans to partner with startups and university campuses to drive innovation and research in this space.
“With the Automated Guided Vehicles, we are re-imagining new growth paths, while orchestrating new and innovative ways of working. We believe this will help bring efficiencies, agility and scale to the supply chain operations, helping us serve the customer better. This India-first initiative is the first stepping stone in this journey. Going forward, we will be looking at how we can help build the country’s nascent automation ecosystem through R&D and collaboration so we can continue building India-specific solutions,” said Krishna Raghavan, Senior Vice President of eKart Tech at Flipkart.
“This allows a kind of unparalleled flexibility and mobility that will be needed to scale supply chain operations for future demand. This will also help Flipkart keep up with scale requirements, speed up the delivery process further, and boost customer experience, which is at the core of our values as a company,” read a communiqué from the company.
