San Jose, CA, October 22, 2020 -- Fetch Robotics, the leader in cloud robotics, today announced a partnership with VARGO®, a leading provider of material-handling systems integration, warehouse execution software and equipment solutions for major fulfillment and distribution centers, to launch an integrated fulfillment solution. The new solution will combine the power of Fetch’s Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) with Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine (COFE®), VARGO®’s industry-leading warehouse execution system (WES), to enable distribution centers to optimize order fulfillment with the latest technology in real time.
The growth of e-commerce and omnichannel fulfillment has pushed companies to optimize their order fulfillment processes to gain efficiencies and to do so with more speed and accuracy. This trend has been further accelerated by COVID-19, which has placed additional strain on distribution centers to increase throughput while keeping employees socially distanced. Many companies have begun applying more automation in their systems in response to this continued pressure and also integrating social distancing into the workflows by dynamically reassigning tasks to specific workers and orchestrating AMR movement. This enables distribution centers to maintain high worker productivity and high worker safety at the same time.
“Distribution centers today are under more pressure than ever before, both in terms of operational efficiency and worker safety. To contend with steadily growing order volumes and an ongoing labor shortage, distribution and fulfillment centers must embrace smarter technology to keep fulfillment operations running,” said Stefan Nusser, Chief Product Officer at Fetch Robotics. “COFE®’s history of providing system-wide pick optimization and orchestration across different workflows and types of automation equipment makes it a perfect complement to robot-assisted picking.”
The combined solution from Fetch and VARGO® enables a single system to provide optimized piece, batch and case picking workflows with payloads up to 1 1/2 tons for e-commerce, retail distribution and omnichannel operations. The COFE® WES, built on over five decades of warehouse industry know-how, is the only WES that controls all the processes that take place inside a distribution center, from material handling equipment to the devices, people and processes. COFE®’s “pull-based” fulfillment optimization can yield efficiency gains of over 30 percent compared to sites driven by traditional “waved/push-based” warehouse management systems. When combined with Fetch’s AMRs, COFE® can offer further efficiency gains by allowing workers to spend more time picking as opposed to manually moving material throughout a facility and can use insights about overall warehouse operations to improve robot workflows.
“As e-commerce fulfillment operators face ever-increasing pressure to reduce labor and deliver higher levels of production in a more scalable and flexible way, the combination of VARGO® and Fetch Robotics, under this alliance, provides a powerful and compelling fulfillment solution,” said Bart J. Cera, president and COO of VARGO®. “We are excited about our company’s formal alignment with Fetch Robotics to further deliver industry-leading, robust and expansive solutions for the challenges that e-commerce and distribution operations face.”
About Fetch Robotics
Fetch Robotics is an award-winning intralogistics automation company headquartered in Silicon Valley. By combining autonomous mobile robotics with the power of the cloud, the Fetch Cloud Robotics Platform provides on-demand automation solutions for material handling and inventory management, with the power to find, track, and move almost anything in any facility. Fetch Robotics' solutions and services are deployed in leading distribution, fulfillment, and manufacturing centers around the world, augmenting workforces to drive increased efficiency and productivity. For more information, please visit www.fetchrobotics.com or follow the company on Twitter @FetchRobotics.
About VARGO®
VARGO® is a team of mechanical and software engineers changing e-commerce operations by designing fulfillment solutions differently than anyone else in the industry. For nearly five decades, VARGO® has worked with manufacturers, distributors and leading retailers — such as American Eagle, Gap, Fashion Nova, Forever21 and numerous 3PLs — to improve their e-commerce operations and material handling systems, increase processing capacities and reduce order cycle times. VARGO® uses its proven, pull-based methodologies to create intelligent solutions for fulfillment centers and continues to be a leader in its industry by integrating robotics and automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) into its solutions. VARGO® is the only company that offers COFE® (Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine), the software that does for fulfillment what Lean did for manufacturing. For more information, visit www.vargosolutions.com.
