Locus Robotics, an Andover, Mass., provider of a robotic outbound picking solution that improves warehouse labor productivity, displayed its Locus Bot at the system's debut trade show. Originally founded in 2009 as Quiet Logistics, a 3PL that used Kiva Systems' robotic material handling platform, the company founded Locus Robotics in 2015 as a way to fill the void left when Amazon.com acquired Kiva and took it off the market, said Al Dekin, Locus' senior vice president of sales and marketing. Locus has now taken the wraps off its solution and is offering it to additional customers, emphasizing the robot's strengths in working alongside human warehouse laborers in piece-picking operations such as e-commerce, storage, replenishment, and wholesale. The Locus Bot creates its own map of a distribution center, then interfaces with a WMS platform and finds its own way to any destination in the building.

For more information, see the Locus Robotics website.