Shopify acquired 6 River Systems for $450 million in September 2019, just 3 months after the presentation of its Shopify Network Fulfillment, which uses device learning to speed up deliveries and reduce shipping costs. What did Shopify expect from the start of execution automation? It’s simple: 6 Autonomous Chuck robots from River Systems that can move packages to warehouses.
During the pandemic, Shopify thrived like never before. Orders for shelters at home not only inspire more people to shop online, but many are starting their own e-commerce business. As a result, the 6 Rivers Systems business also took off. We talked to 6 River Systems co-CEOs Jerome Dubois and Rylan Hamilton to see how they were doing. Dubois manages the advertising aspect and Hamilton manages the operational aspect; they like to say that Dubois is the CEO outside the 4 walls and Hamilton is the CEO when it comes to the 4 walls. We’re talking about the acquisition, Chuck, the automation, the pandemic and everything else.
After the acquisition, Shopify asked the start-up not only to supply Shopify’s compliance network, which was opened to U.S. merchants. In May, but still had to continue with existing trade relations. 6 River Systems licenses its generation to some 50 logistics companies, adding DHL and other big names such as Office Depot, Legend Valve and Lockheed Martin. Customers can choose to continue to receive robots and software and/or use Shopify’s compliance network to generate profits for their business. In this way, 6 River Systems is controlled as an independent organization within Shopify.
Founded in 2015, 6 River Systems is committed to building a collaborative solution that is first and foremost undeniable to implement. The result is Chuck, a self-contained, autonomous robot that now operates on more than 40 services worldwide. The newer version, released in March, provides more payload capacity and harmonized protection standards, so it’s fully qualified anywhere you need to run it. This streamlines the company’s source chain “significantly,” Dubois told VentureBeat.
In the early years, 6 River Systems was known as a warehouse collection solution. He helped corporations put products on the shelves, inside and outside the boxes. For more than 18 months, its functions have expanded on the receiving side, putting the products on the shelf. Dubois calls expansion an evolution based on herbs: “Once you have the generation at the door, consumers ask us ‘Hey, this is something glorious, what else can you do?’ And our answer to that is ‘Wait, we built this roadmap. Here are more and more features that we’ll provide you with over time. And it worked really well for us.’
“But genuine paintings are all in the software, ” said Dubois. “This software is where progress comes from, where we activate those other paint streams. While in the past it was thought of as a collection system, it is now a much more complete solution. And over the next few months, we’ll be making more announcements about wall-to-wall capacity, and that’s where progress comes from. This extends the use not only of hardware automation, but also of software in warehouses. »
The chuck paints at Shopify Fulfillment Netpaintings, however, corporations can also place them in their own warehouses. The minimum order is 8 robots with software and integration, to rent or buy. Renting 8 Chucks costs about $200,000 a year, while buying 8 of the robots costs around $400,000, plus a recurring annual payment of about 20% (for software licenses and maintenance). You get the same device and software you hired or purchased. Eight chucks can be 4 to five collectors according to the formation of approximately 5000 sets (e-commerce or according to options) according to the shift.
It’s the lower end. At the top end, “we have consumers with more than 50 formula pickers at once, arriving or exceeding a hundred chucks in the warehouse and making very vital lines,” Dubois said. “We’re talking about between 60,000 and 70,000 collection games per day.”
Chuck intends to be profitable, Hamilton explained: “Jerome and I come from integrated circuit automation and cell robotics consistent with are consistent, where those formulas were not affordable for many of our consumers. And if their business changed, it was very difficult for them to adapt. So we started this business because we might just create an affordable automation formula, where instead of needing 10 to 15 cell robots consistent with the selector, you needed less than two. And the explanation of why we started this was like “Wow, we can offer a formula that our consumers can afford, and it’s based on a much smaller number of chucks according to the installation.”
Hamilton says the 6 River Systems roadmap has not been replaced as a result of the acquisition. In fact, the team “has been to push it. We don’t have to worry about raising cash every two years, which is great. And we’ve been pretty self-sufficient in terms of next generation on the 4 walls of distribution centers to make our customers’ lives less difficult and help them do their job.”
To be fair, the roadmap is exactly what Shopify would like it to be.
“The vast majority of our roadmap is aimed at distribution centers and warehouses and the boring clinical paintings that take place there, which is the vital element of the source chain,” Dubois said. “But we have other initiatives and we work with some of our consumers elsewhere, such as in the retail area and stores.”
Dubois was reduced to major percentage points of products that “currently circulate in stores.” But he talked about the replacement the team is seeing in the coronavirus era.
“In fact, there’s a motion to operations that consist of buying online, collecting in the store, clicking and collecting,” Dubois said. “Or even, of course, with the transfer to a much higher e-commerce expense, there is much more retail area available. People are thinking about what to do with this area. This is one of the regions we are actively exploring. We work with some retailers. In fact, we are working with the generation that has been used in the outlets for these initiatives, to facilitate the execution of orders, because more and more people choose to buy or [items] in pharmacies. or whatever, their daily needs, look at them instead of walking around the store and buying food themselves.
6 River Systems is perfectly positioned to keep up with the pandemic.
“Like Shopify, we really had to think about our priorities and how we can ship products even faster to help our consumers in this world of conversion,” Hamilton said. “One of the things we have believed in is the flexibility of our generation, the ability to put warehouses into service very temporarily or adapt to the company’s conversion desires. And so, even now, our product resonates even more among our consumers because we don’t have a constant infrastructure. We can run our generation in a matter of weeks, even with paint [measurements] of the house and closure. We’ve invested even more in equipment so we can help our consumers remotely so we can spend less time in warehouses and get it up and running even faster. We have been able to help each and every visitor around the COVID-19 pandemic, and this really resonates with our consumers.”
Dubois added that the company is fortunate not to “be too targeted at retail, e-commerce, manufacturing, distribution or others” in its 40 sites around the world. “What you noticed is a steady expansion in the classic wholesale market,” he said. “We are seeing an increase in demand, close to peak or above the maximum grades for those who were exclusively e-commerce execution operations. And, of course, this coincides with a really extensive minimization in warehouses that supported retail outlets. were replenishing retail outlets, sending retail outlets directly from the warehouse. We’ve noticed a combined bag, but, frankly, the vast majority of consumers are doing pretty well. Operations are being developed in terms of turnover. On the advertising side I think that’s indicative of what we’re seeing as consumers today and I think that trend will continue, as Rylan pointed out.
6 River Systems adds more execution features to its software, adding “a complicated paint distribution” that makes things more effective in the warehouse. If an average day is 10,000 orders and a peak day is 70,000 orders due, for example, to a flash sale, the company’s software automatically adjusts to meet visitor service levels.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, for some of our consumers, it was ‘as always’, some had temporarily suspended their operations, while others were exploring opportunities to interact in new businesses,” said a spokesman for 6 River Systems at VentureBeat. “Now, with a few months of pandemic operation to our credit, we can see how our consumers are our execution solution and Chuck. The following table, taken from the old knowledge of our table-optimized research solution, shows the average peak knowledge of 2019 for two sites. One site has been operating above its 2019 peak since the onset of the pandemic. The site currently averages 50% more daily volume compared to its lower-moving days in 2019. We use this knowledge, as well as our consumers’ own projections, to estimate the number of chucks they want to achieve a peak of success.”
One of the many side effects of the pandemic is that other people don’t need to paint much in combination if they can. This means that the call to automation is expanding even when unemployment has skyrocketed.
“The installation base continues to grow, the number of systems deployed continues to grow,” Dubois said. “And that’s because other people are looking to install more and more automation in their buildings. The effect of the pandemic has really made it even more difficult for warehouse operators to locate the manpower for the paintings in their buildings. They have more difficulty locating others in paintings in buildings even if unemployment is rising. People are worried about the pandemic. They take care of their children. They take care of the other circle of family members. Therefore, they are looking to put more automation, unlike less, to be evidently able to their degrees of service and the volumes assigned to them ».
6 River Systems has been to meet the growing demand, but not without making adjustments.
“We had to be creative,” Hamilton said. “And our consumers raised their hands and said, ‘Hey, instead of sending engineers deploying from the East Coast to a West Coast facility, maybe we can really make some of the paintings ourselves and make part of the facility.’ And we have engineers outside their homes and we help them make maps and other parts to install the systems. We also have partners around the world that we’ve used to keep other people from wanting and boarding planes. We have other local people in those spaces, we have used them to perform the task of setting up new visitor sites or supporting them in existing operations. But definitely, I think it put us all to the test.”
More automation doesn’t mean there aren’t humans painting in warehouses. In addition to directing humans directly, Chucks can also keep them safe.
“Recently, we’ve developed kits to make consumers socially distanced and make our formulas even safer to use,” Hamilton said. “They can carry accessories or wipes or any other type of disinfectant into the robots so that other people can be safe. These are little things we can do. Below, we also set out recommendations on how our consumers can use the full formula. One of the benefits of our formula is that Chuck can walk all the way between the other spaces so that other people can stay apart. Our clients, many of them, do an essential job. While many other people place orders from home online, our consumers want to make sure those warehouses are operational for the economy to work.”
“This alludes to what I said earlier about our consumers looking to put more generation into buildings because of this lack of labor and because they need to protect their partners,” Dubois added. “So now it’s expanding the footprint and years of automation, not just for sampling, but now for things like replenishment or storage paints. Other capacity spaces where we would not normally have deployed generation in the last year or so, this has accelerated the deployment of these technologies to support assistance with social estrangement and safe operations elsewhere.”