Welcome to our series of interviews with winners of the latest edition of the E-commerce Germany Awards. This distinguished occasion is a lavish celebration honoring talent, dedication, and extraordinary accomplishments within the realm of e-commerce. It serves as a platform to acknowledge the pioneers who are driving the industry forward through their innovative approaches and visionary tactics.
Today, we’re delighted to share our conversation with Andrey Bakholdin, VP of Growth at Brightpick. Let’s read our talk about their winning solution – the mobile robot called Brightpick Autopicker.
EGN: Could you describe your company in a few words?
Andrey Bakholdin: Headquartered near Cincinnati, OH, Brightpick was founded in 2021 and today has more than 200 employees. We offer AI robots for warehouses to easily automate every step of their order fulfillment.
EGN: What was the solution you decided to put in for our competition?
Andrey Bakholdin: Brightpick Autopicker, the only mobile robot in the world that robotically picks and consolidates orders directly in the warehouse aisles. The robot is like a human with a cart, moving through the warehouse aisles and autonomously picking and consolidating orders.
Brightpick Autopicker’s patented two-tote design enables it to retrieve storage totes (bins) from shelving and robotically pick individual items from those storage totes into an adjacent order tote. It does this repeatedly as it moves through the warehouse until the order or batch has been fully picked. In contrast to other fulfillment robots, Brightpick Autopicker does not need to travel back and forth to centralized picking stations, which means faster picking and higher throughput.
The robots use AI to reliably pick everything from ambient and chilled groceries to pharmaceuticals, medical devices, packaged goods, cosmetics, electronics, polybagged apparel and more. In addition to in-aisle robotic picking, the versatile Brightpick Autopicker can be used for tasks such as Goods-to-Person picking, pallet picking, stock replenishment, dynamic slotting, order consolidation, buffering and dispatch.
EGN: What makes your robot unique?
Andrey Bakholdin: The fact that all other existing automated storage and retrieval systems for order picking are based on a Goods-to-Person principle. This means their robots have to retrieve products from storage, bring them to a fixed location for picking, and then return the remaining products back into storage. This results in a lot of unnecessary travel for the robots, which slows down picking, reduces throughput and adds cost.
EGN: How can your solution help e-commerce business owners? Is it for everyone or do you aim for specific industries?
Andrey Bakholdin: Brightpick Autopickers are valuable for any warehouse that requires order picking. This includes e-grocery, ecommerce, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, packaged goods, cosmetics, electronics, polybagged apparel, manufacturing and spare parts distribution.
In addition to picking, companies can use the versatile robots to easily automate every stage of order fulfillment in their warehouse. This includes pallet picking, stock replenishment, dynamic slotting, order consolidation, buffering and dispatch.
Customers such as German e-grocer Knuspr, ecommerce retailer The Feed and major European pharmacy chain Dr. Max are already using Brightpick Autopickers in their warehouses.
EGN: What if we want to use it? How does the process work?
Andrey Bakholdin: The robots work with standard shelving and totes, enabling fast deployment and easy integration with any warehouse environment, including existing operations and mezzanines. On-site installation typically takes 3-4 weeks. Beforehand, our team designs the solution to the exact needs and specifications of the client and completes any software integration necessary with their WMS / ERP.
EGN: If you were asked to name three key advantages of your solution in comparison with your brand’s competitors, what would they be?
Andrey Bakholdin: Firstly, higher throughput because Brightpick Autopicker picks items directly where they are stored. Secondly, maximum labor savings because Brightpick Autopicker automates picking in addition to travel. And last but not least, high flexibility because the solution is easy to install and does not require any fixed infrastructure.
EGN: What are your plans for the future? Will your solution keep evolving?
Andrey Bakholdin: Our near-term focus is on continuing the commercial roll-out of Brightpick Autopicker and ramping up our manufacturing and deployment capabilities to meet the huge demand we are seeing from customers.
EGN: Do you have plans for other products or services?
Andrey Bakholdin: Not for now. But it’s worth mentioning that we also have a second robot called Brightpick Dispatcher for post-pick order consolidation, buffer and dispatch.
EGN: What is your current goal?
Andrey Bakholdin: We aim to scale up our deployment and manufacturing capacity in order to meet the huge demand we are seeing from customers.
EGN: What are your predictions for the future concerning your area of expertise?
Andrey Bakholdin: Automation is an unstoppable force in the long-term because the cost of labor is only going up and the cost of hardware is going down. While not all warehouses will be able to automate immediately, to stay competitive long-term ecommerce retailers and 3PLs will need to use automation to drive down costs and improve customer service.
EGN: Why did you decide to take part in the E-commerce Germany Awards 2024?
Andrey Bakholdin: Our products are exclusively dedicated to order picking and fulfillment, which is a huge focus point for anyone doing ecommerce. We chose E-commerce Germany Awards because this is the only awards program that is exclusively dedicated to ecommerce and hence closely aligns with the pain points and needs of ecommerce merchants worldwide.
EGN: We are very glad you did. Thank you for this conversation.
In this enlightening interview with Andrey Bakholdin, VP of Growth at Brightpick, we’ve gained valuable insights into their groundbreaking solution, the Brightpick Autopicker. With its innovative approach to in-aisle robotic picking, Brightpick stands at the forefront of warehouse automation, offering unparalleled efficiency and flexibility. We are happy for the opportunity to share its brilliance with you all and we’re already looking forward to interviews with other winners!
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