From left to right: Shengdong Xu, CTO of Hai Robotics; Richie Chen, founder and CEO of Hai Robotics; Jean-Luc Laurans, supply chain director, North Asia, at L’Oréal; Jakub Czaplicki, fulfillment factory director, North Asia, at L’Oréal; Alan Liu, president of greater China, Japan, and Korea at Hai Robotics; Iris Gu, key accounts manager at Hai Robotics. | Source: Hai Robotics
L’Oréal today said it has picked Hai Robotics as its automation provider for its SMART Fulfillment Center in Suzhou, China. Hai Robotics that the deal signals its ongoing commitment to supporting its customers on every step of their warehousing journeys.
The fulfillment center, based inside Suzhou Industrial Park, spans an area of 46,000 sq. m (495,000 sq. ft.). The facility will house the HaiPick System 1 goods-to-person system. It includes 39 HaiPick A24 Multi-Layer Autonomous Case-handling Mobile Robots (ACRs), as well as HaiPort and conveyor-picking workstations.
“We are delighted to be a part of L’Oréal’s warehousing journey by supporting them with our ACR and goods-to-person technology,” stated Richie Chen, founder and CEO of Hai Robotics. “This marks a key moment in our partnership.”
“This new fulfillment center will facilitate supply chain transformation by improving operational efficiency, storage density, and flexibility in tackling orders, ultimately elevating the experience for our customers who desire speed and convenience,” he added. “We are proud to support L’Oréal in achieving their broader business objectives and look forward to what the future has to bring.”
Automation offers improvements to the L’Oréal facility
Hai Robotics said it will aid L’Oréal with its technical expertise, quality service, and prompt delivery. The companies said that with HaiPick, L’Oréal is now able to handle D2C (direct-to-customer) orders with elevated flexibility, efficiency, and scalability. Hai claimed that it can do all this without compromising on intelligence and sustainability for its supply chain operations.
L’Oréal says its Suzhou SMART Fulfillment Center will be a key hub in its handling of D2C and B2B orders in mainland China. It will allow the beauty brand to better support its commercial clients consisting of e-commerce platforms, offline retailers, and beauty salons.
HaiPick System 1 provides three to four times the operational efficiency of a traditional warehouse, noted Hai Robotics. The system can be broken down into four components:
- HaiPick robots: The company’s ACRs have a vertical reach of over 30 ft high. This allows Hai to reduce a facility’s storage footprint by up to 75%.
- HaiStation multi-function workstation: The HaiStation series of products includes the HaiPort workstation, as well as conveyor, put wall, and buffer wall workstations. These stations enable efficient connections for loading and unloading cases, while ensuring safe interactions between humans and robots.
- HaiQ intelligent management platform: HaiQ is made up of a warehouse execution system (WES), equipment scheduling system (ESS), data platform, and analytic simulation. All of these systems work together to maximize warehouse capacity and improve enterprise supply chain competitiveness.
- HaiCharger smart charger: Hai’s charging station is a DC charging product that is developed by the company independently. Hai designed the charging product specifically for its HaiPick series robots.
About Hai Robotics
Founded in 2016, Hai Robotics said its goal is to empower every warehouse and factory with logistics robots. Its ACR system identifies desired totes and cartons, rather than an entire rack, and autonomously brings them to workstations.
The company said that with HaiPick systems, companies can deploy warehouse automation systems in its storage rack facilities within one to two months upon equipment arrival in most regions and cases.
With its automation, warehouses can increase storage density between 80% and 400%, said Hai Robotics. The company said it can also enhance outbound efficiency by 2.5 times.