SnapFulfil warehouse management system developer Synergy Logistics used this year’s Robotics and Automation to discuss its forthcoming new fulfilment cart.

As visitors discovered, SnapCart is an autonomous mobile robot that can carry up to 48 totes and reduce pickers’ daily walking distance from 15 miles to 1-mile.

“We looked at the robotics market and couldn’t really see a product we thought we would want to use in our warehouse, so we developed our own: SnapCart,” said Daniel Curtois, marketing manager, Synergy Logistics. “‘Essentially, it enables the picker to do the picking and the walker to do the walking.”

The innovative solution uses a man-to-goods approach to multi-order picking and automation that confines pickers to a specific cell, serviced by an autonomous cart.

“Pickers walking up and down everyday and clocking up lots of miles represents one of the most inefficient parts of the warehouse,” added Curtois.

Thus, SnapCart has been designed to help modern e-commerce warehouse environments integrate collaborative robots without making costly infrastructure changes. Furthermore, carts can be added as needed to manage start-up costs and scalability.

SnapCart has also been developed to enhance picking, rather than replace warehouse operatives. Thus, the modular pick-to-light system has an easy-to-use interface, so staff can be trained in minutes.