AI-Enhanced Robotics

Electrolux North America has recently begun production on its first Memphis, Tenn.-made home cooking appliances.

The inaugural products produced at the Memphis facility, the Frigidaire and Frigidaire Gallery slide–in ranges, rolled off the assembly line, were crated and loaded onto trucks for warehousing and retail distribution throughout the United States. This marks the culmination of a two-year construction effort of the $266 million facility.

Pittsburgh – Cabela’s Inc. has seen improvement in throughput and saved on operating costs since implementing the use of Seegrid’s unmanned robotic pallet trucks at its Wheeling, W.Va., distribution center in July 2010. The retailer has used Seegrid robots to reduce manned long haul transports, handle a high variety of product flow and provide flexibility to change routes.

LOS ANGELES — Virtual Piggy has integrated its youth-friendly payment system to Innovation First International, the company behind the award-winning Hexbug Micro Robotic Creatures and Vex Robotics product lines.

Innovation First International is a technology and engineering company that has launched several robotics product lines spanning the consumer toy, STEM education and business-to-business markets.

Robotics and smartphone app power Amazon vet's retail start-up

A Seattle-based retail start-up with an in-store backend robotic system and a smartphone app that rivals the convenience of an online shopping cart is generating big buzz these days. Founded and headed up by Nadia Shouraboura, former head of supply chain and fulfillment technologies for Amazon.com, Hointer combines the best of online and brick-and-mortar retailing to take the hassle out of shopping.

Imagine a store with a back staff of robots, where items appear, almost magically, in the fitting room. A store where customers pay for their purchases in their dressing rooms, without interacting with a single salesperson. You can stop imagining … check out Hointer, an apparel (mostly men’s jeans) shop in Seattle.

As convenience store operator Wawa expanded, it faced a logistics challenge: The company was adding more new stores, and its manually operated chilled warehouse had run out of room. Its production had outpaced its storage capacity, and the chain’s products were now being produced, staged on the warehouse floor and quickly shipped to make room for milk, teas and juices that were newly coming off the line. The distribution center’s storage space had surpassed maximum capacity.

Towson, Md.-based Black & Decker has introduced the GYRO 4V MAX Lithium-ion Rechargeable Screwdriver (BDCS40G).

The manufacturer describes the new product as “the world’s first motion-activated screwdriver.” It uses gyroscopic technology that allows users to rotate their wrist one-quarter turn to the right for forward or left for reverse.

The variable speed feature and direction change that occurs with a twist of the wrist provide improved control while screwdriving, the company said.

New York -- In an effort to reduce vehicle air pollution, Duane Reade, in partnership with Mission Electric, is asking New Yorkers to help determine which of the chain’s stores should be served solely by electric trucks. Combined, more than 30 stores have been identified as electric truck ready in the city’s boroughs of Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

New York -- The campus store at Carnegie Mellon University has a new attraction: a small robot called AndyVision. Developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Intel Science and Technology Center in Embedded Computing, the robot is designed to help keep track of store inventories and assist customers in finding products, according to a report on PCWorld.

New York City -- Saks Inc. will expand its distribution and fulfillment capacity, adding a new facility in Tennessee in 2012.

The new center will occupy approximately 564,000 sq. ft. of leased space and will be located in LaVergne, Tenn. It will be equipped with a sophisticated mobile-robotic fulfillment system that has been successfully deployed in Saks’ Maryland facility.

Saks expects the Tennessee facility to be operational by August 2012.