Furniture company IKEA has begun to automate its buildings on a large scale in Europe. The drones have begun to take stock in their warehouses, and 100 of them have already been deployed in a total of 16 branches in seven countries.
It is not directly a project of IKEA, but of Ingka, under which 90 percent of all stores of this furniture company are located. So are warehouses, which Ingka operates in 31 countries, including the Czech Republic.
The company began deploying drones to IKEA warehouses in 2021, the first company to do so in Switzerland. The pilot project here was successful, so the drones gradually spread to IKEA warehouses in Croatia, Belgium, Slovenia, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
Flying machines mainly help the company with night inventories. IKEA has more than 10,000 jobs in its warehouse that it has to check regularly, which takes up to three months’ manpower, according to Ingko. This is why automation came into play. The drones have a barcode reader on them, and as they fly between the shelves, they check which merchandise is currently missing. They always do this at night between 10:30pm and 4:00am. The entire inventory process has been sped up several times.
You can watch the video to see how it actually works. The drones also received the typical IKEA color camouflage. In addition to reading barcodes, they can take photos and videos and perform 3D scanning of objects. They have charging stations directly on the pallets between the goods, through which they send data to the central system.
All equipment was supplied by the Swiss company Verity, which is currently experiencing such a high demand that it cannot keep up. I did last week available $32 million to expand its operations and plans to supply more drones to IKEA/Ingka.
Ingka has big plans for the development of IKEA warehouses, she wants to gradually deploy drones in all locations for which she is responsible. And since it also ensures the operation of the Czech IKEA warehouses, it is expected that it will eventually reach us as well.
source: Ingka Group press release
“Proud twitter enthusiast. Introvert. Hardcore alcohol junkie. Lifelong food specialist. Internet guru.”
More Stories
Eurowag offers carriers a simple billable currency conversion, and the service is free
Fraudulent SMS messages are on the rise exponentially, sounding the O2 alarm
Are you worried about fraudulent text messages? O2 fights them in a very original way – SMARTmania.cz