Apotea AB is building a new logistics center in Varberg, Sweden, to serve growing online demand. The pharmacy chain has expanded its strategic agreement with RightHand Robotics Inc. and SSI Schaefer Group to deploy the RightPick item-handling system to automate order fulfillment.
“We are happy to have found a unique and tailor-made solution with RightHand Robotics technology for our warehouse in Varberg,” stated Pär Svardson, CEO of Apotea. “We have worked with RightHand Robotics for a few years now and our initiatives for automation have substantially increased our efficiency. This is a necessary investment for us, as we continue our expansion and fulfill customer demands.”
Stockholm-based Apotea said it is Sweden’s largest online pharmacy, with more than 25,000 over-the-counter products and almost 16,000 prescription drugs for humans and animals. Since 2011, sales have increased from approximately SEK 12 million ($1.15 million U.S.) to SEK 5,5 billion ($528 million) in 2023.
SSI Schaefer to integrate RightPick with Cuby
RightHand Robotics said its RightPick system, which includes robotic manipulation and machine learning, will be fully operational at Apotea’s new warehouse by 2025. The 30,000-sq.-m (323,000 sq. ft.) facility will be the second Apotea warehouse that RightHand Robotics is automating.
In 2022, Apotea implemented RightPick at its facility in Morgongåva, Sweden, which now ships around 70,000 orders of medication and non-prescription products per day.
In Varberg, SSI Schaefer will integrate RightPick with its own Cuby single-level shuttle system, an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) for the cube storage of containers and cartons. The Neunkirchen, Germany-based company provides robots for storage, picking, and transport, as well as manual and semi-automated systems and service packages.
The RightPick system will receive and pick products at the end of the conveyor belt from the SSI source tote, scan the bar code if necessary, and place the product in the designated tote location for its final destination. RightHand and SSI said their systems will reducing item-handling errors and significantly increasing the speed of Apotea’s order processing and fulfillment.
With its investment in SSI and RightHand’s technology, Apotea said it expects to increase the number of orders per day processed at the Varberg warehouse by 50,000.
RightHand Robotics touts RightPick record
“We’re honored that Apotea chose us again to support their e-commerce needs,” said Brian Owen, CEO of RightHand Robotics. “This is a true testament to our RightPick system’s proven track record of increased order-fulfillment rates and a strong ROI [return on investment].”
“Apotea’s investment represents a significant step toward the evolution of logistics and e-commerce in Sweden,” said RightHand.
A DARPA challenge-winning team from the Harvard Biorobotics Lab, the Yale GRAB Lab, and MIT founded RightHand Robotics in 2015. The Charlestown, Mass.-based company combines computer vision, unique grippers, and machine learning for full-stack automated piece picking.
It said its system provides “flexible and scalable automation for predictable order fulfillment.” Earlier this year, RightHand announced a multi-year agreement with Staples Inc. and discussed its RightPick 4 system at MODEX.