Latest news with #warehouseautomation
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
5 Must-Read Analyst Questions From Rockwell Automation's Q1 Earnings Call
Rockwell's first quarter results were well-received by the market, driven by strong execution on cost control and margin expansion despite a challenging sales environment. Management credited robust performance to effective pricing, ongoing cost reduction programs, and resiliency investments made during recent supply chain disruptions. CEO Blake Moret highlighted sequential improvement in customer demand and cited particularly strong growth in e-commerce and warehouse automation solutions, which offset declines in automotive and process sectors. He noted, 'Our value proposition is stronger than ever before,' pointing to recent share gains in power control and increased adoption of Rockwell's automation and robotics offerings. Is now the time to buy ROK? Find out in our full research report (it's free). Revenue: $2.00 billion vs analyst estimates of $1.98 billion (5.9% year-on-year decline, 1.1% beat) Adjusted EPS: $2.45 vs analyst estimates of $2.12 (15.8% beat) Adjusted EBITDA: $452 million vs analyst estimates of $380.2 million (22.6% margin, 18.9% beat) Management raised its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance to $9.70 at the midpoint, a 5.4% increase Operating Margin: 17%, up from 15.6% in the same quarter last year Organic Revenue fell 4% year on year (-8.1% in the same quarter last year) Market Capitalization: $38.63 billion While we enjoy listening to the management's commentary, our favorite part of earnings calls are the analyst questions. Those are unscripted and can often highlight topics that management teams would rather avoid or topics where the answer is complicated. Here is what has caught our attention. Andrew Obin (Bank of America) asked about drivers behind e-commerce and warehouse automation growth and visibility into the second half. CEO Blake Moret cited multiple customer segments and confirmed data centers are part of this vertical, attributing growth to ongoing investments by consumer and logistics companies. Scott Davis (Melius Research) questioned how customers are responding to reshoring trends versus macro uncertainty. Moret noted optimism in U.S. manufacturing but highlighted project delays due to tariff-related cost uncertainty and interest rates, especially in automotive and process sectors. Chris Snyder (Morgan Stanley) inquired if project delays are likely to reverse with improved visibility. Moret clarified that delays are not cancellations and expects investments to resume as cost certainty returns; North America remains the strongest region. Andy Kaplowitz (Citigroup) asked about the long-term margin potential and cost-out runway. CFO Christian Rothe pointed to hundreds of ongoing productivity projects and expects further structural cost opportunities, though specifics for future years were not provided. Joe O'Dea (Wells Fargo) requested details on tariff exposure by region and competitive positioning. Rothe explained the majority of U.S. imports from Mexico and Canada are compliant with trade agreements, and Moret emphasized Rockwell's flexible manufacturing footprint as a key advantage. Heading into the next quarters, the StockStory team will closely monitor (1) execution of tariff offset strategies and supply chain moves, (2) progress in automation, robotics, and software adoption across key verticals like e-commerce and life sciences, and (3) the pace of recovery in delayed capital projects, especially in automotive and energy. Continued improvement in recurring software revenue and the impact of cost actions will also be key indicators. Rockwell Automation currently trades at $342.74, up from $252.78 just before the earnings. In the wake of this quarter, is it a buy or sell? Find out in our full research report (it's free). The market surged in 2024 and reached record highs after Donald Trump's presidential victory in November, but questions about new economic policies are adding much uncertainty for 2025. While the crowd speculates what might happen next, we're homing in on the companies that can succeed regardless of the political or macroeconomic environment. Put yourself in the driver's seat and build a durable portfolio by checking out our Top 5 Strong Momentum Stocks for this week. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025). Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-small-cap company Comfort Systems (+782% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Symbotic (SYM) Soars 14.57% on Amazon's Automation, Robotics Adoption
We recently published a list of These 10 Stocks Boast Double-Digit Gains Amid Boring Market. Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM) is one of the best-performing stocks on Thursday. Symbotic surged by 14.57 percent on Wednesday to close at $35.70 apiece as investors gobbled up shares following Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy's letter to employees, underscoring the future of warehouse automation and robotics. In a letter to employees, Jassy underscored the company's increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence, saying that it will need fewer people to do some of the jobs over time. 'In our fulfillment network, we're using AI to improve inventory placement, demand forecasting, and the efficiency of our robots—all of which have improved cost to serve and delivery speed,' Jassy was quoted as saying. Jassy's message spilled over to Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM), which is heavily focused on warehouse automation and robotics, as investors placed bets on expectations of stronger demand for its solutions amid the broader shift towards AI. A warehouse automation system in operation, with robotic arms managing inventory efficiently. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, Symbotic Inc. (NASDAQ:SYM) narrowed its net loss attributable to shareholders by 56 percent to $3.9 million from $8.8 million in the same period last year. Revenues rose by 40 percent to $549.6 million from $393 million year-on-year. While we acknowledge the potential of SYM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Yusen Logistics deploys their first order fulfilment project in Europe with Geek+'s Shelf-To-Person robots
Automation will enhance B2B and B2C operations for the 3PL industry NORTHAMPTON, England, June 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Geekplus, a global leader in warehouse robotics, has been awarded the contract by UK-based warehouse automation integrator Logistex, to deploy 165 Shelf-to-Person robots at Yusen Logistics' 1.2 million square foot distribution centre in Northampton (UK). The project marks a major milestone in warehouse automation for the 3PL industry and it's designed for B2B and B2C multiuser operations for chilled and ambient activities. The scalable solution will be implemented in two different phases to ensure business continuity throughout the transformation. Geekplus' P800 V6.0 solution – for pallets and shelves movement - significantly enhances picking efficiency, inventory accuracy, and space utilisation—key advantages for third-party logistics providers facing growing customer demands. "This project demonstrates the power of flexible automation," said Simon Houghton, Sales Director UKI at Geekplus. "Our Shelf-to-Person system enables scalable growth without disruption. We're proud to support Yusen Logistics in their first of this kind automation project in the UK but also in the Europe region" For Yusen Logistics, the deployment aligns with a broader digitalisation strategy aimed at increasing efficiency and responsiveness across its operations. "By integrating Geekplus' robots, we will be able to improve accuracy, agility, and throughput," said Ben Bird, Business Development and Solutions Design Director at Yusen Logistics. "The system will give us the flexibility to scale alongside our customers' evolving needs while gaining a great customer experience". The implementation will be delivered as part of a wider warehouse automation project led by Logistex, ensuring seamless integration with Yusen's infrastructure and business processes. "It's a pleasure working with Yusen and Geek+ on such a forward-thinking project," said Justin Saw, Business Development Director at Logistex. "Together, we look forward to delivering a future-ready solution with immediate results." The project highlights how Goods-to-Person robotics are reshaping the logistics landscape, offering 3PLs fast ROI, reduced labour reliance, and high safety standard. With this deployment, Yusen Logistics is well-positioned to lead in a rapidly changing market. Photo - - View original content to download multimedia:
Forbes
13-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
S&S Activewear Is On The Cutting Edge Of Warehouse Automation
S&S Activewear, a leading North American distributor of imprintable apparel and accessories, implemented a solution from Geek+ called PopPick. Warehouse robotics is going through an ongoing revolution. PopPick represents a new wave of flexible warehouse automation. Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Bolingbrook, IL, S&S had revenues of $4.1 billion in 2023 following the acquisition of alphabroder, another leader in the branded merchandise industry. S&S ships more than 100 brands. Their 17 distribution centers, scattered across the US, have more than 4 million square feet of warehouse space, allowing them to offer next-day shipping to 41 states. If an order hits their warehouse by 5 pm, they will ship it out that day. The freight is free on orders over $200. The company fulfills 6 million orders annually and claims to offer the deepest inventory in its industry, combined with the lowest error rates. Their investments in automation have been key to this. A small order, for example, might consist of delivering 20 jerseys of the same color and basic design, but different sizes, that will be sent to a customer in the imprinting industry. The imprinter will print and decorate the apparel - t-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, socks, etc. - and then ship to the end user. Some imprinters can have very large orders that support concerts, marathons, trade shows, and other events. So, while in some ways the S&S supply chain resembles an e-commerce supply chain in terms of speed of delivery, an e-commerce order is smaller, typically involving picking onesies and twosies. Traditional warehouse automation was bolted down. There might be miles of conveyors with sortation, A-frames, carousels, or shuttle systems. John Santagate, the senior vice president of global robotics at Infios, points out that when warehouses with this bolted-down automation were designed to support multiyear growth, initially, the automation had greater throughput than was needed. Then, there was a period, often a relatively short period, when the throughput was a good match for shipments, and then, eventually, the throughput was insufficient. Adding more throughput is unwieldy and impractical. So, for most of the asset's life, it is underutilized. Infios, where Mr. Santagate is employed, is one of the largest warehouse automation system integrators. Warehouse robotics was revolutionary because it allows for greater throughput and flexible automation. Goods-to-person robots are used to move small racks containing inventory shelves to a picking station. A typical rack was small. It might be a short rack with four shelves on one side and four on the other. This is the primary type of robotics used in Amazon warehouses. For each picking, this eliminates the redundant walking of the order selection workers. Compared to manual picking, the throughput is improved by a factor of 2 to 3 times. But this form of automation is also easy to install. It is nondisruptive to existing operations to add new robots and shelving as the throughput needs increase. S&S implemented the PopPick solution from Geek+ Automation. This represents a new wave of automation. These X, Y, Z-axis robots transport much taller racks - up to 12 columns of totes - that contain full cases of a stock keeping unit. An arm with suction can grip a case or tote, pull it out, and ergonomically present it to a worker at an order selection station. Larger orders are easier to assemble, and warehouse storage density is many times larger than with the first-generation goods-to-person bots. S&S has the largest implementation of the PopPick solution in the world. 100 to 200,000 square feet of racking have been replaced at five distribution centers – Lockport, IL, Reading, PA, McDonough, GA, Reno, and Dallas – with mobile robots and racks. At the 750,000 square foot Lockport DC, for example, 200,000 square feet are now devoted to 350 PopPick mobile bots, 3000 automated racks, and 120,000 customized blue totes. The company was looking for automation. It is increasingly difficult to find workers willing to work in a warehouse. But what type of automation should they select? Brian Tanquary, the vice president of information technology at S&S, said that one of 'the key decision factors that was used in selecting an automation solution was obviously the cost to implement, but it was also about how could that system fit within our current distribution footprint, and could that solution be adapted to work with our custom ERP platform.' This solution is an excellent fit for apparel. An order to support a sports team might include two extra smalls, three smalls, 15 mediums, etc. These different SKUs are in different totes. Only a few SKUs would be brought over by a robot carrying a small rack. But PopPick allows for big racks – racks with up to 40 totes - to be brought to the picker. All the SKUs to complete the order are conveyed by one mobile robot. The racks are reslotted every night to include SKUs likely to ship together. The same style and color of goods are placed on one rack. That leads to a more efficient delivery of racks to associates the next day. Adam Kranich, an assistant operations manager at S&S, said that flexibility and productivity were both critical. One of 'the unique benefits of having PopPick is the ability to reslot and change your rack configurations on the fly, but it also offers an increased throughput that you won't get with standard goods-to-person. Our entire process has changed. Our associates went from spending 50 to 60% of their day driving around to the pick location instead of actually performing the job.' Now robots do that. The workers have the work all lined up for them. They pick orders right into outbound boxes, and thus the downstream packing process has been streamlined. Cole Lohman, the director of automation, stated that 'in the past, we would see pickers work at 40 lines per hour, and we can get triple that. Now, under good conditions, we can see pickers that pick up to 200 lines per hour.' Picking accuracy has also been improved because of the way the system was implemented. Mr. Tanquay explained that we 'weigh and measure the totes as they're being inducted into the system. This is a key checkpoint for us to ensure that we have the proper quantity and type of product in each tote. That helps us ensure that we get the correct product to the customer.' The way product is inducted into the system is unique. Induction is putting goods into empty totes that will subsequently be picked. The process has been streamlined. Empty totes are extracted from the top of the rack while full totes are fed into the lower levels of the rack almost simultaneously. A multistep process has been simplified. There have also been improvements in the speed with which new employees can be trained. Mr. Kranich said training 'went from upwards of 90 days to six months, down to about a week to two weeks.' The company believes that the simplified picking process, the fact that the workers don't have to walk as much, and improved ergonomics has also led to improved worker retention.
Forbes
02-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Innovation Will Create The Warehouses Of The Future
More automation could transform warehouse productivity In a world where innovation and technology are transforming the way in which enterprises work, it sometimes feels as if operational assets such as warehouses are behind the pace. Many large manufacturing businesses and logistics operators still run noisy and dirty facilities that rely on large numbers of staff working through manual processes. Slowly, but surely, however, that is starting to change, as supply chain executives recognise the potential of new technologies to increase efficiency and drive productivity. Recent McKinsey research, based on a survey of logistics and supply chain leaders found 70% of them intended to invest more than $100 million in automation over the next five years. And there is a huge amount of investment required. Research from MarketsandMarkets suggests that on current trends, only a quarter of warehouses in the US will have any level of automation by 2027. MarketsandMarkets sees entrepreneurial new entrants to the sector as playing a major role in accelerating innovation. It reckons the global size of this market will increase from $33.3 billion last year to $51.0 billion by 2029 – growth of 8.9% a year. 'Market growth is expected to be fuelled by various factors, including the increasing number of start-ups offering robotic solutions for warehouse automation,' analysts at the market research firm explain. One start-up hoping to play its part in this theme is San Francisco-based LuminX, which is today announcing it has raised $5.5 million of seed funding. The business, launched last year by CEO Alex Senemar has developed a new platform that uses vision language models to speed up warehouse operations. The idea is disarmingly simple. Using cameras on mobile devices, LuminX's technology can process warehouse deliveries as they arrive, instantly recognising what products are in a shipment, whether that matches what the business is expecting, whether there are any quality or damage issues to worry about, and where in the warehouse the delivery is subsequently moved to. The technology significantly reduces the time currently taken up with manual delivery processing, which requires warehouse staff to check each box individually and enter records on a system. It generates data that flows into a company's warehouse management system so that it has single record of what goods have come in. It also provides a visual record of goods that have been delivered, eliminating inconsistencies and the potential for disputes, much in the same way as consumers now receive photos of e-commerce deliveries they receive at home. The inspiration for LuminX came from a previous logistics start-up, Senemar explains. 'I was spending a significant amount of time on warehouse floors and was constantly surprised by the amount of manual effort dedicated to bar code scanning and verification tasks - it struck me as a major bottleneck and a source of inefficiency,' he explains. 'It felt like a problem waiting for the right technological approach, and recent improvements in large language models and mobile cameras provided an opportunity to significantly improve this process.' Senemar subsequently teamed up with co-founder Reza Javanmardi to launch LuminX. The company has already sold the technology to a number of US warehouse operators and is in contract negotiations with more. One early adopter is Vertical Cold Storage, which operates a network of warehousing facilities across the US. COO Robert Bascom credits LuminX's technology with 'revolutionising our warehouse productivity and operations'. He explains: 'It's allowing us to automate critical tasks, significantly enhancing quality, and reducing claims.' LuminX's seed round is supported by investors including 1Sharpe, GTMFund, 9Yards, Chingona Ventures, and the Bond Fund. At the first of those firms, 1Sharpe Capital, Kat Collins says: 'By turning a low-cost camera into a perceptive co-worker that sees, understands and acts in real time, LuminX is unlocking a step-change in operational intelligence and efficiency for every pallet, conveyer and forklift.' Investors believe LuminX has the potential to be one of a wave of start-ups that are now starting to transform warehousing. Companies such as the Israeli business Flymingo are also exploring the use of vision technology in logistics; the Spanish business Friday Systems is using artificial intelligence to help robots take over complex tasks currently carried out by humans. Australia's Vypex enables logistics teams to track inventory more closely than ever before. In short, start-ups from across the world are increasingly moving the logistics sector forward. The warehouses of the future will be run almost entirely automatically, eliminating the waste and inefficiency that currently causes so much disruption.
