One of Europe’s largest online grocers automates order picking in Prague fulfillment center

Brightpick uses autonomous mobile robots to retrieve totes from storage and bring them to robotic picking stations. Image credit: Photoneo

Rohlik’s Horní Počernice fulfillment center in Prague ships out approximately 7,000 orders per day and holds 18,000 SKUs across ambient, chilled and frozen temperature zones. The ambient zone consists of a three-storey mezzanine structure.

Brightpick automated the first floor of the existing mezzanine structure in the ambient zone. Brightpick’s Goods-to-Robot solution picks and consolidates orders using autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and robotic picking arms.

Brightpick AMRs autonomously navigate using LiDAR sensors and are designed to safely operate around humans. The robotic picking arms are powered by Photoneo 3D scanners and use proprietary AI algorithms, which have been trained on more than 250 millions picks to date. The entire robotic fleet and fulfillment process is orchestrated and optimized by Brightpick Intuition software.

All 2,500 SKUs in the automation area were robotically pickable, which enabled Rohlik to cut picking labor to zero and reduce picking errors. The solution was designed to achieve 600 picks per hour.

In addition, the Brightpick solution also automated inventory replenishment. AMRs transport totes from decanting stations and dynamically slot them into the most optimal storage location. Totes that contain faster-moving merchandise are stored closer to the picking stations to reduce picking times.

Brightpick’s solution required minimal changes to the existing layout – Rohlik’s existing 2-meter-tall shelving, which was previously used for manual picking, was kept fully in place. As a result, Rohlik could leverage its existing footprint, avoid additional capital investment, and install Brightpick in weeks without any interruption to service. Despite this challenging brownfield environment, Brightpick met the strict SLAs necessary for Rohlik to deliver customer orders in 60 minutes or less.

“Before installing Brightpick, our picking process was entirely manual. Brightpick enabled us to install end-to-end automation without making any major changes to our existing warehouse processes. Their solution enabled us to practically eliminate our picking labor and reduce picking costs.” said Aleš Malucha, Rohlik Group’s Chief Engineering Officer.

Subsequent phases could see Brightpick automate the second and third floor of the ambient mezzanine and the chilled picking zone.

In addition to automating ambient order picking, Brightpick has also automated part of Rohlik’s dispatch process in the same fulfillment center.