Automated material handling vendor SI Systems is showcasing its robotic A-Frame system at the Modex 2018 tradeshow this week. The A-Frame is designed to automatically pick up to 4,200 orders per hour to totes, shipping containers, or a conveyor belt.

The picking equipment can handle anything from a ChapStick tube to an item that weighs 2 pounds, and provides 99.9 percent accuracy, the company says. Products—typically small items like pharmaceuticals or cosmetics—drop down the A-frame's chute, typically into a tote traveling on a conveyor belt that runs down the middle of the machine.

The A-Frame might not match your image of a robot. There are no swiveling arms and it does not move across the floor, but Randy Randolph, East Coast vice president of sales, says that the A-Frame is a robot nonetheless.

"You know what the most common robot in the United States is?" he asks. "The dishwasher. Just as the dishwasher is a robot, so is this A-frame."

For more information, visit www.sihs.com.