Kindred Announces Strategic Partnership with VARGO® for Mutual Client E-Commerce Fulfillment Solutions
SAN FRANCISCO – Oct. 26, 2020 – Kindred announced a partnership agreement with VARGO® to incorporate its artificial intelligence (AI) pick and place robotic solutions with VARGO®’s warehouse execution system (WES) to enhance both parties’ solutions for retail and e-commerce fulfillment. Kindred has been working with Hilliard, Ohio-based VARGO® since 2017 and partnered on e-commerce fulfillment system design and integration for Gap Inc. Gap has deployed more than 100 Kindred SORT robotic systems in combination with VARGO®’s WES.
“This partnership between VARGO® and Kindred further demonstrates the commitment of both of our companies to bring strategic and innovative distribution solutions to the industry that solve real fulfillment challenges brought about by limited labor availability and, most recently, COVID-19 social distancing requirements,” said Bart J. Cera, president and COO of VARGO®. “The marriage of these application-based technologies, like Kindred’s pick and place robots, teamed with the appropriate distribution center design, equipment and execution software, provides our customers with highly efficient and industry-leading distribution solutions. We look forward to continuing to partner with Kindred in bringing the latest technologies to our customers.”
To create a safe working environment for its employees amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Kindred and VARGO® customers use SORT AI-powered warehouse robots to increase social distancing measures. Rather than standing side-by-side with co-workers to conduct pick and place operations, one employee can manage three to four Kindred SORT robots simultaneously, keeping up with e-commerce fulfillment while maintaining social distancing.
VARGO®’s Continuous Order Fulfillment Engine (COFE®) – a waveless warehouse execution system (WES) – is the power behind the e-commerce fulfillment revolution and is pulling the industry into its advanced waveless order fulfillment system. COFE® is a WES software that synchronizes and sequences all processes and resources – people and equipment – within a fulfillment center and responds instantaneously to dynamically changing environments. COFE®’s waveless process continuously assigns new orders to a revolving batch of work and eliminates downtime created in wave-based environments. By creating a continuous flow of work, COFE® provides a true, lean order fulfillment solution.
“We have been working side-by-side with VARGO® as a valued partner since our market launch in 2017,” said Marin Tchakarov, CEO of Kindred. “We certainly value their technology as well as their collaboration in helping to build the warehouse of the future, powered by intelligent machines that ultimately augments the human workforce.”
Kindred’s AI data shows retailers are facing dramatic peaks in online orders since the COVID-19 pandemic forced retailers to close a number of brick and mortar stores. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, the number of units SORT picking robots process per day has increased by 45% across the installed base.
SORT pick-and-place robots utilize AutoGrasp™, a robotics artificial intelligence platform that identifies items to pick, place and sort into complete end-customer orders. AutoGrasp™ combines AI-powered machine vision, grasping and manipulation algorithms that handle a range of merchandise, including deformable items such as polybagged items.
Kindred uses cutting-edge AI research and human-in-the-loop data methodology to continuously improve robot capabilities so that picking becomes smarter, faster and more accurate over time. Kindred SORT robots have picked more than 100 million units in production to date.
About Kindred
Kindred is a robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) company that develops robots to solve real-world problems. Its mission is to enhance the lives of human workers with the power of AI robotics. Kindred’s cutting-edge technology is the foundation of a number of proprietary platforms, including AutoGrasp™, developed to operate robots autonomously in dynamic environments. Its team of scientists, engineers, and business operators have set a new standard for reinforcement learning for robots. The company is co-located in San Francisco and Toronto. For more information, visit www.kindred.ai.
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, FashionNova, Forever21 and numerous 3PL’s — 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.
