22 DC VELOCITY APRIL 2017 www.dcvelocity.com
newsworthy
Technology startup N.io Innovation LLC has hired a pair
of high-profile tech executives from Time Warner Cable
and Dell EMC, as the Internet of Things (Io T) software
provider prepares to launch its platform for industrial and
logistics users by 2018, N.io executives said.
N.io hired Sven Gerjets as chief product officer and
Christopher Ratcliffe as chief marketing officer, the company said. Gerjets had previously served as chief information officer at Time Warner Cable and held other technology management roles at AT&T, Symantec, Direct TV,
and Pearson. Ratcliffe worked most recently as senior vice
president of marketing for Dell EMC’s Core Technologies
division, following similar jobs at companies of a wide
range of sizes, N.io said.
Broomfield, Colo.-based N.io, which pronounces its
name “Neo,” said the new executives will help spread its
digital transformation platform (DxP) product beyond
its current customer base in the industrial, agriculture,
telecom-media-entertainment, and OEM (original equipment manufacturing) verticals. New uses for N.io’s software could include logistics-related applications such as
smart supply chain optimization, artificial intelligence,
telematics, auto-ID and RFID (radio-frequency identification), and location-based services, according to a
research paper titled “Designing the Future of Connected
Systems” published by Boulder, Colo.-based consulting
firm Harbor Research.
The company needed to add the new executives to
sustain its fast growth and prepare for its launch into
wider markets, N.io CEO Doug Standley said in a phone
interview. The company is growing from $5.5 million in
revenue last year to an estimated $15 million for 2017 and
expanding its payroll from 37 employees to a target of 60
to 75 by the end of the year, Standley said.
That fast pace of expansion shows that the privately held
company is poised to make an impact in the logistics and
retail space, Gerjets, the new chief product officer, said
during the interview. “There’s no better time to market
to drive business value; companies have to modify their
supply chains to compete with Amazon, and this product
was designed to allow CIOs to keep up with the pace of the
Internet of Things,” Gerjets said.
N.io’s software could be applied to the supply chain
sector to speed up transactions and improve product visibility, the company says. The software, for example, could
be used to program strategic nodes (such as smart sensors,
auto-ID readers, or loading dock scanners) to make nearly
instant “decisions” instead of transmitting bulk data back
to a centralized cloud for analysis first.
—B.A.
N.io hires executives from Time
Warner Cable and Dell EMC
Third-party logistics service provider Yusen Logistics
has opened a 53,820-square-foot logistics center
near Celaya, Mexico, to meet the growing demands
of its domestic and international automotive customers. … Americold, a temperature-controlled
warehousing and logistics service provider to the
food industry, has broken ground in Clearfield,
Utah, to expand its warehouse. The project will add
6. 5 million cubic feet of temperature-controlled
space to the company’s existing 11. 2 million-cu-bic-foot facility.
ground breakers
InVia Robotics unveils warehouse
robot fleet
Warehouse robotics startup inVia Robotics Inc. has rolled
out its newest line of mobile robots: a fleet of rolling carts
that move inventory around a warehouse to help workers
perform e-commerce fulfillment and material handling
tasks.
According to Los Angeles-based inVia, its Dynamic AS/
RS (automated storage and retrieval system) is a goods-to-person solution that delivers totes and trays directly
to human pickers and packers. The robots reduce the
amount of human travel time in warehouses and the
potential for employee accidents, inVia said.
Last August, inVia introduced a pair of mobile order-pick-ing robots that the company said could help retailers
better compete with Amazon.com Inc.’s hyper-efficient
fulfillment network. The AS/RS system complements its
piece-picking “goods to box” approach by adding a
“goods to person” capability of delivering totes weighing
up to 30 pounds apiece to human workers, inVia CEO and
founder Lior Elazary said in a phone interview.
The process is similar in concept to that used by
Amazon’s robots, which shuttle entire racks of inventory
around DCs, but operates at a fraction of the cost of the
Amazon system, Elazary said. InVia’s AS/RS system uses a
facility’s existing shelf space and removes only the tote
it needs, he said. DC operators can quickly integrate the
inVia system with their existing IT networks by using its
robot management system (RMS) software to connect with
any warehouse management system (WMS), Elazary said.
The system justifies its price by delivering a high number
of units per hour, resulting in a low cost per pick and a
significant reduction in labor costs, the company said.
InVia’s system joins a growing number of collaborative
robots, or “cobots,” being developed for warehouse work
alongside human colleagues. As opposed to displacing
human workers, cobots perform repetitive tasks with
speed and precision, allowing humans to concentrate on
more complex jobs.
