Fetch Robotics launches new system for real-time inventory visualization in warehouses

Fetch Robotics, a provider of autonomous mobile robots for warehouses, has launched a new system for real-time inventory visualization.

The company says its new RFID visualization capabilities allow third-party logistics companies, manufacturers and retailers to autonomously capture, and then analyze and visualize inventory data in the cloud.

Fetch added the “new and unique” capabilities to its TagSurveyor technology, a robotic RFID solution that allows customers to gain complete visibility of assets in their fulfillment centers, distribution centers or warehouses via visualization of inventory data on a facility map.

With the ability to autonomously and continuously capture RFID data, TagSurveyor allows customers to fine-tune their inventory planning with more up to date and accurate data in order to operate leaner and more efficiently.

Ensuring accurate inventory counts is a key concern for distribution and fulfillment centers, which stand to lose over a trillion dollars due to poor inventory management practices that result in lost or misplaced items.

Traditionally, warehouse managers have relied on physical counts, in which associates scan individual items to create a numerical record of items in the warehouse.

These physical counts, which require hours of manual work and demand high labor costs, often result in inaccurate data collection and fail to collect location-specific information.

As a result, warehouse managers only see the number of items instead of their location throughout the warehouse, leading to unnecessarily high inventory levels, wasted man hours looking for inventory and dollars lost in expedites, re-orders and write-offs.

Fetch’s TagSurveyor is a cloud-enabled inventory management solution designed to improve inventory tracking, increase accuracy and save customers time.

The TagSurveyor robot uses powerful RFID technology along with robot localization in a facility to gain a complete view of the warehouse and its assets, returning valuable insights to customers through the cloud.

With its built-in localization capabilities, TagSurveyor geotags all items with their location in the warehouse to create sophisticated visualizations of the entire facility.

With TagSurveyor, customers can increase inventory counts and checks from once-a-month to multiple times per day to provide autonomous insights.

Stefan Nusser, Fetch Robotics vice president of products, says: “Distribution and fulfillment centers are becoming more data-driven, but most facilities still lack basic information such as up-to-date inventory counts.

“Fetch is developing a full suite of robots to provide new levels of insights into warehouse operations and workflows, and TagSurveyor is our most specialized solution to date.

“With Fetch’s cloud platform, customers already using Fetch robots can add a TagSurveyor with no additional effort, and can outfit their facilities with any of Fetch’s broad range of AMRs to help them find, track and move anything from parts to pallets.”

Once deployed in a facility, TagSurveyor allows customers to see the difference in inventory levels or movement of assets, making it easy to analyze changes, additions or removals since the last survey.

Specifically, customers can overlay on a map of their facility assets that were supposed to be in a location that are no longer there, assets that are in a location that are not expected, or the movement of an asset from one location to another in a facility.

Given the quickly evolving nature of warehouse needs, Fetch customers can deploy the TagSurveyor on an as-needed basis through Fetch’s Robots-as-a-Service model, which allows companies to scale effectively as the business grows.