In a post-pandemic climate, Atlanta Bonded Warehouse, or ABW, sites across the U.S. needed a turnkey solution to overcome labor shortages with out-of-the-box thinking.
Workforce challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic led to uncertainty. If companies didn’t have a Plan B, they weren’t going to grow. With warehouses ranging in size from 450,000 to more than 1.5 million sq. ft. (41,806.3 to 139,354.5 sq. m), ABW had a lot of ground to cover.
Not only did the company need to continue to hire top-notch talent, but it also wanted to provide the safest and most efficient working environments possible.
“Labor at the time [2022], obviously [with] COVID, really got hard for us to find labor at all the sites during that time period,” recalled Dale Cook, continuous improvement manager at ABW. “So we started looking for, what’s Plan B?”
“It was a market where you didn’t know where it was heading, which made our customer struggle,” he said. “So they were reaching out for everything they could. Let’s go try everything.”
Enter Fox Robotics ATL
Founded in 2017, Fox Robotics Inc. said it automates pallet workflows to improve workplace safety and warehouse productivity across the U.S. and Canada. The Austin, Texas-based company is backed by investments from BMW i Ventures and Zebra Technologies Corp.
Fox Robotics develops, manufactures, and sells the FoxBot Autonomous Trailer Loader/Unloader (ATL). It claimed that FoxBot is “the world’s first Class 1 electric, stand-up autonomous forklift designed for unload operations on warehouse loading docks.”
ABW determined that Fox Robotics’ autonomous mobile robot (AMR) would fit the bill for everyday functionality in its warehouses.
One deciding factor was speed to automation. The companies scheduled a demonstration within a few weeks, without the need for prerequisite supplemental integrations.
Fox Robotics showcased its ability to navigate and accommodate various configurations that organically occur in busy warehouse conditions. The company said its ATL can automate time-consuming repetitive tasks, increase employee productivity, and support a safe environment with a lower risk of injury than with manually driven forklifts.
The autonomous forklift can avoid obstacles as it picks pallets, according to Fox Robotics. Developed with proprietary machine learning and vision technology, the ATL automates the unloading of pallets from trailers so workers can focus on critical responsibilities in the warehouse, the company said.
Using real-time vision and remote safety sensors featuring lidar perception, the FoxBot autonomous forklift maneuvers the warehouse floor safely and efficiently.
“With the pilot we had in 2022, we were ready to roll,” said Cook. “We really understood [Fox Robotics’] product and what we were looking for. Getting the robots integrated with our products was simple.”
FoxBot handles over 4M pallets
Fox Robotics said its mission is to transform inbound and outbound operations in warehouses. It is well on its way, having unloaded more than 4 million pallets since 2019.
With partners such as ABW, Fox Robotics said its team strives to help warehouse and logistics leaders realize a wide range of benefits, including:
- Over 40% labor cost savings due to the FoxBot forklift operating without a driver
- One warehouse associate can supervise five to six FoxBot autonomous forklifts at once
- Enhanced worker safety by removing forklift operators from dangerous situations
- Unloading trailers in 60 minutes
- Reduced product loss and damage
- Increased uptime due to the predictability, speeds, and long battery life of the ATL
It didn’t take long for ABW to realize these at each of its warehouses.
“The integration felt easy and seamless, and the continued support from Fox just made it that much easier for the adoption of it,” said Tim Tiller, continuous improvement leader at ABW.
Tiller said his team was impressed with how easy the robots were to run, which was easier than they initially expected. They also liked the rapid and cohesive responsiveness of Fox Robotics’ customer service.
Any new process or technology can be met with some caution, but once ABW’s team and board saw how easy the robots were to use, it drove their curiosity into exploring further automation in the warehouse.
“It hits everyone when they hear those numbers, like, ‘Wow, are you kidding?’” said Cook. “The bots last year unloaded 12,297 inbounds and 344,000 pallets.”
In addition, ABW’s team was impressed with the consistency in the unloads, said Tiller. The robots free up people to do other tasks, such as labeling loads more in real time. This helps transporters keep the dock cleared reduces damage to goods and trailers.
Automation improves ABW warehouse processes
Fox Robotics’ systems have led to all-around improvements in the inbound process, reported ABW. As leading third-party logistics provider (3PL), it said its mission is to provide integrated warehousing, transportation, and co-packaging services to the food, pharmaceutical, and related consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries.
Fox Robotics has integrated robots in Irving, Texas; Kennesaw, Ga.; Austell, Ga.; and Columbia, S.C.
ABW’s drive for continuous innovation in best practices and technology made it an “ideal client” for the FoxBot ATL, according to Fox Robotics. It touted its ability to deliver and install a system in just one hour, plus ease of use, strong customer service, and performance reliability.
All these factors allow ABW logistics operators to reallocate labor elsewhere in their warehouses, improve efficiency with fewer staffers, and maximize uptime, said Fox Robotics.
Editor’s note: This case study is published with permission from Fox Robotics.