Your local supermarket could soon be home to a miniature robotic warehouse. Boston-area startup Takeoff Technologies is developing what it calls micro fulfillment centers. These will be small, heavily automated grocery distribution facilities that could be located inside existing supermarkets and used to quickly assemble orders for delivery or customer pickup. Putting them in existing stores near where customers live and shop can make getting food and other goods to consumers faster and cheaper than delivering groceries from remote, sprawling warehouses effectively taking care of the last mile. Takeoff plans to launch its first micro fulfillment center within a not-yet-unnamed grocery store this October, using about 10,000 square feet of its 50,000-square-foot space. There, and in other locations the company plans to launch, robots from warehouse logistics and automation company Knapp will shuttle bins of merchandise to human packers, who’ll grab products from the bins, verify they’re in good shape, and assemble them to fill customer orders. Ideally, a customer will be able to place an order for drive-through pickup with just a half-hour lead time.
[Image: courtesy of Takeoff Technologies]
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