Dental City Inc. faced a common warehouse challenge: It needed to scale order volume and meet accelerating customer expectations, all without expanding its facilities. The dental supply distributor has deployed Locus Robotics Corp.’s mobile platforms and infios’ software in two connected warehouses.
Green Bay, Wis.-based Dental City said its fulfillment operation needed to be faster, more efficient, and less physically demanding for its staffers. The company promised same-day shipping for all orders placed by 4:00 p.m. In addition, it guaranteed two-day delivery.
As order volumes grew, warehouse associates were walking long distances, operations became congested, and productivity levels had plateaued. Dental City turned to automation to make its warehouse operations more responsive and efficient.
Locus AMRs work with Infios WMS
Dental City deployed a fully integrated solution using Locus Robotics‘ autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and infios‘ warehouse management system (WMS). A fleet of more than 20 Locus Origin and Locus Vector robots automated both picking and point-to-point transport across the two warehouses.
The Locus Origin AMR is the company’s flagship AMR. It can be configured to use multi-level shelving and a wide range of containers, including tote arrays, bulk bins, and even shipping boxes. The Locus Vector material handling robot features four levels of open shelving for high-productivity applications.
Dental City said the Locus robots enabled:
- Enhanced order accuracy
- Cycle time reduction
- Improved efficiency
- Reduced associate strain
Wilmington, Mass.-based Locus Robotics won a 2025 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award, its eighth, for marking 4 billion robot-assisted picks. Earlier this year, the company surpassed 5 billion picks across its worldwide deployments.
Dental City sees boosts in productivity, order accuracy
Dental City reported a 300% boost in picking productivity and a 90% reduction in training time. The company said that zone-based picking combined with Locus AMRs allowed orders to be split and fulfilled simultaneously.
“Most orders are now completed within five minutes,” said Joe Derenne, warehouse manager at the distributor.
Associates no longer walk lengthy round trips or push heavy carts, reducing labor strain.
“The Vector bots alone save a person a 10-minute round trip each time,” observed Denny Johnson, Dental City director of IT. “We’re now positioned to double capacity in our existing space. That’s the power of this partnership.”
While the company said its accuracy was already strong, the system now consistently achieves 99.85% accuracy, aided by clear visual prompts on handheld devices during picking.
The company has forecast a three-year return on investment (ROI) with Locus Robotics. “We’ll hit that in under 16 months,” added John Mathys, president of Dental City.