“We are basically a program “We look like a robotics company, but we're actually a software company,” Locus CEO Rick Falk says with a laugh.
It's a familiar refrain from companies whose most public-facing products are hardware. This is certainly the case with Locus, which produces the most famous autonomous mobile robots not made by Amazon. While it's true that these baggage transport systems are key to the Massachusetts-based company's warehouse game, Volk tells TechCrunch that the company's software is what sets the market-leading apartment apart from the competition.
Locus currently offers fleet management software, which is essential for coordinating automated systems in a busy environment. This is also a feature of the company's latest offering, the LocusHub Engine. Announced this week at the Modex Supply Chain Expo in Atlanta, the platform is designed to leverage data collection that is key to the company's automation system. Just like your Roomba at home, Locus's AMR hardware is packed with sensors that provide situational awareness and help it navigate around people, obstacles, and other robots.
In essence, they are data-gathering machines that are also very good at moving heavy loads around warehouse floors. The new software offering uses artificial intelligence to process massive amounts of data collected and make predictions of what comes next.
“Most of the reports in the warehouses right now are what we call ‘reactive,’” Volk tells TechCrunch. “That’s what happened. Someone chooses X number of units per hour, and here's how many units you should choose for the day, week, and month. We think that's great and we still need it, but we also believe that having predictive analytics to tell you what's going to happen is very important.
Using machine learning, predictive modeling makes suggestions about where warehouse managers should allocate employees – both humans and robots. The software can also be used to identify bottlenecks and optimize antimicrobial resistance pathways to improve efficiency.
“We have uniquely integrated data capture from our bots into our platform,” Volk says. “For example, I can go into my phone and look at any robot in our system. I can actually control that robot and update it through my phone. We have the capabilities to be able to bring those two things together.”
The founding of Locus was a direct result of Amazon's acquisition of Kiva Systems in 2012. Quiet Logistics, a former Kiva customer, was among those customers left in the lurch when the retail giant decided to stop serving third-party businesses, and instead It focused all its efforts on automating its implementation processes. Quiet started its robotics division in 2014, then spun out Locus the following year.
The Kiva acquisition was a huge catalyst for the category as a whole. Former executives from the robotics startup have launched their own Locus competitor, 6 River Systems. However, that company has struggled in recent years, following its acquisition of Shopify and subsequent sale to English grocery technology licensee Ocado Group. Another major competitor, Fetch Robotics, was founded in 2014. In 2021, the company was acquired by commercial technology giant Zebra. Most recently, founder Melonie Wise left the company to join Agility's growing executive team.
You can spot dozens of direct competitors walking the halls of Modex this week, but Locus remains the market leader by a wide margin. It's a situation that has been further reinforced by the increased interest in warehouse automation due to the pandemic. Investor activity was at an all-time high, fueling companies hoping to level the playing field in a world completely dominated by 800-pound Amazon gorillas.
Investor enthusiasm has waned since then. While it is true that many operations still have difficulty recruiting human labor, there is still regression to the mean. Last January, Locus laid off a small number of employees, a number the company has not yet disclosed.
“We've frankly over-hired in our target markets, like a lot of our clients,” Volk says. “We came out of the coronavirus crisis and had expectations about staffing needs and those kind of things that were probably overstated.” The CEO adds that the “adjustments” occurred among Locus' head-to-market headcount, rather than among the engineering team.
But the company remains a success story in the broader category. We have achieved steady growth by focusing on current customer needs, rather than trying to be all things to all people. A decade after its founding, AMR luggage vehicles are still at the center of everything Locus does. Over the years, the company has added products like the Vector, which can hold up to 600 pounds and features specialized wheels that allow it to effectively slide sideways to better navigate tight spaces. Each new robot is essentially an iteration of Locus' core robot product.
Nowadays, human labor is essential to this story. Locus doesn't produce a mobile manipulator, which means people have to move handbags on and off the robot. When asked if Locus would be the company to bring this technology to the warehouse, Volk replied: “We will do that. We are looking at a number of things that will reduce labor in the building. We have a research and development group that is looking at things to fully automate the building. Over time I'm sure we'll find out.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Volk is not particularly optimistic about the role humanoid robots will play in that future.
“Maybe for specific jobs [be useful]”There are challenges today between battery life and cost and runtime and all the other things that come with it. I think there may eventually be some use cases for specific things. But I think it will take years before there is any scale. There are tests that will be done,” he explains. “But before anything reaches the enterprise level, I think it will take years.”
