Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Grey Orange Robotics – Leaders in Warehouse Automation

Established in 2009 and co-founded by BITS Pilani alums Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta, Grey Orange Robotics develops and deploys leading-edge products and services in robotics and warehouse automation business. In a giant leap, Grey Orange Robotics has developed a warehouse management system that not only skips several generations of research, but also places it on par with two other companies in the world that offer similar products.

It is a first -of-its-kind venture for the Indian logistics industry. It builds robots that can move shelves stacked with various products to a floor assistant who then scans a bar code to confirm the right items. The robot in turn moves the chosen products to the shipping bay where workers seal the packages for final transport.

Grey Orange Robotics has raised Rs 3 crore from consortium of "There is no player in the Indian marketplace offering a similar solution today," says Sanjay Nath, managing partner at Blume Ventures. investors led by Blume along with other investors - BITS Spark Angels and the Hatch Group in January. As part of the investment, Sanjay Nath of Blume Ventures will join the board of directors, while Abhinav Khushraj will be a board observer representing the BITS Spark Angels group.

BITS Spark is an initiative launched by the institute and alumni of BITS Pilani, with the aim of building an entrepreneur ecosystem for BITSians. Spark Angels is an angel network comprising of BITSian angels (distinguished alumni and entrepreneurs) and select non-BITSians partners. It targets to invest from R25 lakhs to R2.5 Cr at seed stage in high potential BITSian start-ups based in India.

Recently, the company developed a new technology - 'Butler System' which aims to automate the warehouse operation by using a fleet of mobile robotic drive units (Butlers) to speed up and streamline work quickly and efficiently. The robots, which look like cubes and are called Butlers, help a worker pick 500 items per hour compared to 40 items in the normal course. GOR Butlers are squat contraptions of fast-moving mobile robots, which scurry around the warehouse and manage everything. Grey Orange Butler System has three components: small, wheeled retrieval robots, tall upright racks and human workers.

This also helps retailers' ship products in one hour instead of two days. In India, warehouses are plagued with many problems due to increasing inventory, labour theft, wrong shipments and wastage of time in searching and fetching goods. It is estimated that 90% of the time is wasted in searching and fetching the items. Centralized warehouse operation is preferred but the labour is unable to support high volumes.
Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta 

“We have a demo warehouse in Gurgaon where we have tested the product. Currently we are looking for pilot customers which can help us in ‘live testing’ of the butler system for 2-3 months so that we can commercially launch it too,” said Kohli, co-founder and CEO of Grey Orange.

Kohli said Grey Orange would confine its services to Indian companies for now. The other product package sortation system, which helps in sorting of ready-to-be-shipped packages, already has customers like Flipkart and Flipkart logistics, Kohli shared.

"We were missing product development," says Gupta. Meanwhile, AcYut, the robot they had built in college, was competing at international robot Kung Fu and football matches. It won one gold, two silver and one bronze medal at the RoboGames (previously ROBOlympics) held in the US in 2010. At the event, Kohli and Gupta met a series of mentors and investors who advised them to spin their business into industrial robotics.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you Vamsi for this very useful post. Truly advancement in technology can provide excellent improvements in the procedures within the warehouse. This can increase the production and enhance the services of the business making our customers happy and satisfied.

    warehouse management systems for success

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  2. Wow....
    Thanks for posting this. Insightful and inspiring.
    I think investing in warehouse management is a great idea. point of sale software can be very helpful for
    your business growth and provides you products details.
    For more info visit : -
    Warehouse Management

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