Warehouse automation has reached new heights in the pandemic - and it doesn’t seem to be stopping here. While COVID-19 has created a host of supply chain challenges, it’s also underscored essential opportunities for innovation. From climbing robots to increasing demand for reflexive and dynamic warehouses, we get to the bottom (or rather, the top) of the modern retail warehouse.
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Warehouse automation has reached new heights in the pandemic - and it doesn’t seem to be stopping here.
While COVID-19 has created a host of supply chain challenges, it’s also underscored essential opportunities for innovation. From climbing robots to increasing demand for reflexive and dynamic warehouses, we get to the bottom (or rather, the top) of the modern retail warehouse.
In this episode of The Voice of Retail, I sit down with the CEO of Exotec Robotics, Romain Moulin, to talk about the past, present and future of warehouse automation.
We discuss the accelerated need for agile warehouses, how Skypod System’s climbing robots are redefining warehouses from architecture to operations, and when investing in automation is right for you as a retailer.
With a little human-to-robot harmony, it’s safe to say that the twenty-first-century warehouse is changing for the better.
Watch the informational video on Exotec’s Skypod System here.
About Romain Moulin
Romain Moulin is the CEO of Exotec, a company he co-founded with Renaud Heitz in 2015 . As a former robotics architect and technical engineer at GE and BA Système, Romain spent 10+ years immersed in deep technology systems before he shifted his attention to solving the challenge of retail warehouse automation. He was born and raised in France and graduated from a top French engineering university, SUPAERO.
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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael Leblanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Warehouse automation has reached new heights in the pandemic, and it doesn't seem to be stopping here.
While COVID has created a host of supply chain challenges, it also underscored essential opportunities for innovation. From climbing robots to increasing demand for reflexive and dynamic warehouses, we get to the bottom or rather the top of the modern retail eCommerce warehouse.
In this episode of The Voice of Retail, I sit down with the CEO of Exotec Robotics, Romain Moulin, to talk about the past, present and future of warehouse automation. We discussed the accelerated need for agile warehouses, how their Skypod System’s climbing robots are redefining warehouses from architecture to operations, and when investing in automation is right for you as a retail,
Romain Moulin
If we look to the warehouse and the supply chain, from a scale from one to ten, we are at one, I think there is ten more to be done in as a supply chain with the robotics that we have today. As I said, it's very manual still. And there is a value to be brought in the supply chain with that.
Michael LeBlanc
Let's listen in now.
Romain, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing this afternoon?
Romain Moulin
Very good. Thank you. And thank you for having me here.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, I'm excited to hear about you and your company. It's a very intriguing part of retail and the retail supply chain. I know retailers around the world, here in Canada and in the US are very interested to learn more about how given the advancement of eCommerce, how they can get more efficient and effective and so much to talk about.
Let's start with you. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Who are you? How did you get to do what you do? And what do you do at the Exotec?
Romain Moulin
So, I'm founder of Exotec. And we are two founders, the second founder is Renaud Heitz, and how we created Exotec. In fact, we were a robotics engineer working for supply chain, but also for General Electric, GEs care doing medical robots. But we wanted to get back in supply chain. And we saw that robotics could bring a lot of value in the warehouse. And everything that we learned into this advanced robotics, we could use it in the warehouse to do more performance system for supply chain but also not very flexible system. So, performance and flexibility is what we wanted to bring.
So, we started the company in 2015 and at that moment, Amazon announced that they would shut down the sales department of Kiva system, Kiva system.
Michael LeBlanc
Right, right.
Romain Moulin
Small orange robot. It's a company that they bought a few years before. And they announced that they would keep that technology only for them. And in fact, that was a tipping point of Renaud and myself thinking about what we could do to the warehouse. And.
Michael LeBlanc
That was a big, that was a big moment, I know for everyone. I actually know someone here in Canada who had the Kiva system, and they still have them. But of course, you can't get parts and it's, as you say, Amazon elects to both buy the company and then take that technology internally. So, I guess, as you say, for you It created that moment where you said "aha", there's an opportunity to do something similar. Bring robotics to efficiency, right, and you've got customers.
I was reading through some of your literature, I think you do, you deal now with Carrefour and Gap. So, you've got a nice bit of retail background, right, and that's since 2015. You said that was that kind of moment where you launched the company, yeah?
Romain Moulin
Yeah. When we started the company, we went and discuss with a lot of retailer of warehouse manager and they confirm to us what we felt with this Amazon story. It was that robotics could change the game. As you said, we discussed with Carrefour and we then sold systems to Carrefour, with Gap, with AI app, doing eCommerce with Decathlon sports retailer, with Uniqlo Apparel.
So, we discuss, we have discussed with most of the customer, most of the retailers, and they have confirmed what we felt. Firstly that they wanted to bring the performance in their warehouse because for them supply chain is a weapon. I think and that's what retailer, I've understood the last 10 years its supply chain, in fact, is visible from the end customer point-of-view.
And yes, sir, two years ago, supply chain was considered as a thing that was necessary but not something that was bringing value and maybe that's Amazon that showed how much could be brought to the final customer by the supply chain. But at that moment, when we started the company, we saw that everybody was looking for more performance, but the big trouble they have is that they don't really know what we'll be doing in the future, they don't really know what proportion of eCommerce they will do in four years in five years. So, they need to find systems, robotic system, which are very easy to modify, if necessary, that you don't take any risk on your future and you build something right now, because you, you know your needs right now. But in three years, we come back and we modify the system.
And that's really the sense of Exotec, the value added with our system, it's bringing the performance so you will multiply by five, the speed of your operators, of your pickers in your warehouse, you can make them day by day as a density of good storage. But at the same point, at the same moment, you don't make any assumption on the future. And if a retailer comes to us and say, ‘Okay, I have a plus 20% orders to be done in my warehouse’, then we come back and we say, ‘Okay, let's add 20% robots’, and with search system you add robots, you can add storage. These systems are easy to scale, and they have been designed to live with the customer. They will be deployed for 10 to 15 years. So, they need to be modified, they need to live so that we follow the supply chain needs of our customers.
Michael LeBlanc
It's, it's so interesting, what you describe is around customers understanding supply chain, if, if they didn't understand it, because of Amazon, they certainly understood it because of COVID. I mean, the word supply chain, you know, as you say, you're exactly correct. 15 years ago, you would never hear a consumer say the word supply chain, or even no one cared what that meant. But now, we're all so aware of it now.
We don't have the benefit, this being a podcast of videos, I will put in the show link some videos so that the listeners can go and check out visually what your robots do. But, can you do us a favour and kind of try to describe, I think many retailers would be familiar with the mobile kind of key the system, but I saw videos of picking and all kinds of interesting things. So, tell, unpack that for us. If you could describe that a little bit about what your what your systems do that is it, it makes it so efficient and makes it so flexible.
Romain Moulin
Yes, maybe I will start with the purely manual warehouse. So, in fact, 90% of the warehouses are manual. And in a purely manual warehouse, you have operators, which are called the picker, which needs to find the articles, to gather your orders. And then we'll walk up to 10 miles a day to find different articles to put them in a box and to send them to you. The idea of our system is to say to the picker stay here, I will send the robots, go and get the goods that you need. So, the robot will move around on the floor of the warehouse and at some point, and that's really the big stuff of Exotec, the robot will grip shelving and will climb up to 10 meters to take the articles, bring them down back to the, the operator. So, when you are the operator, you don't look anymore for the articles, you have an army of robots which are at your service, and they're bringing you these goods, so that you can do really fast in preparing the orders. And as the robots to move in three dimension in the storage, we get a very dense storage and we can stack goods up to the ceiling that was,
Michael LeBlanc
That, that, that's very interesting because in a traditional, let's call, Kiva system, the robots are moving the shelves around and then there's a Pick-to-Light process to the picker, right, but what you're describing is something more dense, where the robot if I get you correctly is choosing the item to bring to the packer versus you know, a shelf full of 30 things with a Pick-to-Light system. Am I getting that correct?
Romain Moulin
Yeah, so robots are moving small boxes. So, sorting gram boxes instead of huge shelving of 300. The robots are smaller, and they can climb up to 10 meter. So, if you see a manual storage on Kiva systems, storage from Amazon, they will be two meter high.
Michael LeBlanc
And, and you call it the Skypod. And I guess your system is flexible so that it can go into a warehouse, but it sounds like with its density, you could also put that system into, adapt it into the back rooms of dark stores or gray stores where they, you know, try to optimize some, some inventories that. Yeah, Interesting. Interesting.
Romain Moulin
You're right, we see more and more of that trend of trying to get the warehouses closer from the cities because from a reactivity and transportation point-of-view is interesting you'll get closer from your end customer. And with such technology, you can do really small warehouses, fairly small system that you can bring in very small room, and sometimes it's even a dark room, as you say. Next door of a supermarket.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah, well, it's so interesting. So, you recently, congratulations, you see the $90 million funding round. I guess that's what brought us together, just caught my eye, and clearly there's investments happening and you want to bring, as you said, you've got customers like Carrefour but you are, you're based in, in France, you want to bring that technology to North America? Are you starting to have those discussions? Is there a lot of interest in, in advancing supply chain? How's, how's that going for you?
Romain Moulin
There is a yes, a huge need in, in North America, in America and Canada, for such a technology. And for us, it's a very interesting market. It's growing fast. It's not that robotized yet, a lot of the suppression is manual in North America, but it's really getting transformed. So, we are already on the market, which is growing 15% per year. But on territories like, like the United States or Canada, it's even growing faster than that, because the suppression is transforming into a very high base. So, sofor us this 90 million that we put in the company was a fuel for getting international. We were just starting at that moment, USA, but now we have already three system deployed. So, it will go very fast for now. And the company is really getting into its international defense formation hiring people in the old town. It's a very interesting moment for us.
Michael LeBlanc
No, very interesting. Now, what, just one last question about the capabilities? So, what kind of items? I mean, typically, the pick of items, are we talking mostly hard goods? Do you do food, apparel, like just give me a bit of a, so the listeners can kind of understand, you know, if your solution is right for the commodities that they, that they sell.
Romain Moulin
In retail, most of the goods will fit in our boxes. So, apparel, of course, cosmetics and beauty, groceries, works very well, as you said we have system [inaudible] can be into industry about even medical pharmaceutical. But most of the retail, what would not fit is a bike, for instance, that usually is an article, you handle them in a different warehouse because they need specific tools to be manipulated.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah. Right, right, right. So, you've been in robotics for a lot of your career. Give me a sense, and give the listeners a sense, on a scale of one to ten. Where are we with robotics and AI and efficiency? Or, you know, from your vision perspective, if one is while we're here today, and we can pick an item and ten is closer to what might be the full potential on a scale of one to ten, where do you think we are today? And at how fast do you think we're gonna get farther along?
Romain Moulin
If we look to the warehouse and the supply chain, from a, a scale from one to ten, we are one, I think there is ten more to be done in as a supply chain with the robotics that we have today. As I said, it's very manual still. And there is a barrier need to be brought into supply chain with that. If you look to robotics in general, I think we're at 0.01.
And we will see magic things happen. And what did really change the robotics, that is the, when internet came the software, a lot of soft money came in Exotec, if you look to the engineers that we have here 70% of the company is about software, because you have robots then sending the robots, the robots at the right moment for the right bin for the right picker. That's a lot of sure intelligence and algorithm. So, you can bring a lot of value in your robotics, thanks to the software. So, that's why I think we only scratched the surface of it. During the last year, we have many, many things to be done.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, it's very exciting. Well, let's hone in on that a little bit. So, around the world, certainly in Canada and the US, the COVID era has advanced eCommerce which is good for, good for your business, lots more warehouses or people thinking about how to get goods, one each to customer. So, you know, how are you feeling about that and what are you hearing from your clients around or prospective clients around moving towards more robotics? I mean they, is there great interest in it? Are they, are they saying I'd like you to be a little farther along? Or has the market for your products accelerated equal to the acceleration? And in eCommerce, what have you been hearing?
Romain Moulin
Yes, it has accelerated. So, all of our system in production, we track them. So, we know what performance is delivered by our system. During the COVID, we saw the performance of the system double the throughout of the house doubled during the year, and even after the COVID is still plus 30% compared to before. So, of course, the eCommerce has boomed with, with the COVID.
And we have seen it well in the market need, but what happened also with that, I see many company was thinking about transformation, thinking about getting more and more on eCommerce, and that was before the COVID. So, maybe sometimes afraid of getting into it and after the [inaudible] question anymore. They know that the currency of the future, and all the retailers are switching to eCommerce. And they're always so confident because before they were not contemplating, what would be the path to fickleness in between B2C and B2B in their revenue, and now they are really confident on eCommerce and they build, they are building a supply chain, which is standard for volume. So, it's really important to have a good solution if you want to have an accurate delivery to your end customer.
Michael LeBlanc
You know what, what jumps out at me about your system is something you said earlier is adaptability because I hear from retailers the need to be agile. We don't know what's coming in the future. And you know, putting a lot of capital into robots only to discover that you need, you know, something different, something bigger, something, you know, something different, in some way, shape or form a year from today, or two years from today, that feels like an advantage for you right? That is, that built in agility, something that, that is gathering interest among your prospective folks. And the people you're talking to.
Romain Moulin
Yes, the system is completely designed for that. It's designed to be, to be deployed on a customer site in six months, whereas traditional automation would take at least 18 months. And it's designed to be, to scale very easily. If you want to add performance to the system, we bring robots in and in seconds, the robot will download the software and start to work. If you want to have to add storage, we will add storage next to the system. And when it's ready, reboot the system and the robots will start to go in this new storage. So, it's a matter of hours to scale your system and to improve in proceeds performance.
So, it's very convenient for our customer because for instance, if we take the one which are switching from a brick-and-mortar retailer to eCommerce, they have a production of eCommerce and they don't know what exactly will be in the future. So, giving them system that will, if they do 10% eCommerce, if they do 50% eCommerce. For them, it's very convenient, they know that they won't have any trouble.
Michael LeBlanc
Right.
Romain Moulin
Because of some bad hypothesis they would have made it to be.
Michael LeBlanc
Yeah. Or it's just very difficult to know these days, right? So, you have to build in some agility. What is the right blend, do you think between robotics and people in your experience in your model? So, is there a formula that, that when you say listen to as you add robots, robotic technology, you need to add people alongside of it? How do you think about that?
Romain Moulin
It's important if you want to, for the people in the robot to work well too, to take time to explain to the people in the warehouse, some of them. Therefore, long times are used to manual operation and if you just take the time of explaining to people the transformation of the supply chain, you have very, very good results because they will help in improving the system, deepening the system and it's really, the system is really ergonomic compared to manual picking. It's much more convenient to work on our system than to do it manually. From body stress perspective, it's much better so people are already happy to use our system, but really from the beginning, we had the best results when our personal, to the team, to the team to us show the system to the team and explain to them what they would do with it. So that when the system is mounted on site, everybody is really happy with it that's important to accompany the tension.
Michael LeBlanc
Right. You know, whether it's, it's your system or another system, what's the right inflection point around volume that makes it make sense. I mean, this is an investment in capital versus people. So, what kind of volume should retailers be? If there's hitting volume of x, they should be thinking about a more aggressive move into robotics is, is there a percentage you look at?
Look, you need to be sending out 10,000 pieces a day. Because volume, I would understand that volume, as, as actually you indicated, the more volume, the more efficient it becomes. Because the robots can, can just you need volume to make them, the business case, make sense. What's that tipping point that you commonly talk about?
Romain Moulin
If you're doing groceries, when you start to have like 500 or 700 orders per day, you can start thinking robotics, it makes sense. And if you are doing other retails, I mean, two pieces fell down in a rack, then you can start to using robotics. If you do 3000 hours per day. That's when it's good to look at robotics.
Michael LeBlanc
And what's the minimum viable install that you would do, like? A bit of racking and a couple of robots? Like what, what makes sense because there's training, and adaptation. And again, I'm trying to give the listeners, we don't have the benefit of visuals, I'm trying to give the listeners a sense of is this the right solution for them now, is it the right solution long term.
Romain Moulin
Yeah. Something interesting with our solution that it can go from really big with several hundreds of robots. For instance, for Carrefour, we have one site with 200 robots, that's also very small and we have system with 10 robots. So, robots you feed one quick picker, one picker, will work at 300, the big scale. Well, that is a performance KPI for us and, and for that you need 10 robots. So, it's rather than 10 robots, 10,000 bins.
Michael LeBlanc
Awh very good. No, that's, that's a nice number and a metric that people can start to understand. So back to the future. Last question. What are you most excited about in your, in your business and robotics is it, is it the AI software behind it that you're expecting to take it to the next level? What gets you excited about, about the future in your line of work?
Romain Moulin
What is exciting in, in Exotec is really to see the customer to see their challenges. And to turn them challenges into technical solutions, you can really find a nice mechanical way of having your robots climb on the shelving so that it goes faster you can find, every day, you may find a new solutions to get something more performant or more flexible.
And it's the same in software, you can find the nice idea that will decrease your robot, well, increase your robot speed by 10%. And then the price will decrease amount by 10%. So, the nice idea can have huge impact and supply chain is a very nice playground for that. Any idea can turn into value added, value added for your end customer. And what is very nice, I think that we are very useful now and we discussed with many different segments with different changes. So, each time we visit a new customer or a new warehouse, it's a pleasure to discover how they do, what they did well, where they, where, what is challenging for them. It's extremely exciting to, to go all over the world and see, see the different chains.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, it's all very exciting and thank you for sharing a bit about your company and a bit about warehouse supply chain and robotics. Where can people go to learn more about Exotec and the work that, that you're doing?
Romain Moulin
The best is to go on our website, as you said, we have a very visual system. So, you go to our website, www.exotec.com, and you will see the video, it's, it's very clear that's a fairly simple system from outside. Inside, it's a bit more complex, but you're can see the robots in action, and it's very nice to be seen. So yeah, go on our website.
Michael LeBlanc
Well, fantastic. Romain, thank you so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail. It's been great to discussing all this and I wish you much continued success and best of luck as the borders start to open up and you can visit and travel and see people in person. I'm sure you're looking forward to that as, as we all are, but that's going to happen right around the corner. But in the meantime, thank you so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail. It's great to, to meet and chat and learn more about you.
Romain Moulin
Thanks a lot.
Michael LeBlanc
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure and follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co.
Until next time, stay safe. Have a great week.