Evaluating Boston Dynamic’s Stretch Robot in Action at Arvato

Arvato acquired its first Stretch system this year and the robot’s impact was immediate.

As one of the world’s largest third-party logistics (3PL) providers, German company Arvato considers engineering and automation part of its DNA. Arvato’s extensive facility in Louisville, Kentucky provides supply chain management, warehousing, and fulfillment services for B2B and B2C clients. This means moving tons of inventory through a facility covering approximately 3 million square feet. Arvato acquired its first Stretch system this year and the robot’s impact was immediate.

“We had a vision for completely automating a carton from loose-loaded in a container all the way to the outbound process. We already had the scanning and systematic pallet building and sortation. Stretch was kind of that last puzzle piece that we were missing to have a true automated loose-load unload solution… It allows us to improve the back end, the sortation, with just a little bit of our logic change, and we’re able to really achieve higher throughputs than we ever imagined.”

Alex Rees, Arvato’s Senior Project Manager of Automation and Innovations