22
July 2024
Ocado Group plc
("Ocado")
Ocado and Kroger to roll out
new technology enhancements across CFCs
Ocado Group ("Ocado") has announced a
significant development of its partnership with Kroger, a leading
US grocery retailer. Kroger has placed an order for a wide range of
new automated technologies to roll out in Customer Fulfilment
Centres (CFCs) across its network.
Kroger will implement Ocado's latest
'Re:imagined' technologies across multiple CFCs in its live
network, as well as future CFCs. The technologies include
proprietary Ocado innovations such as On-Grid Robotic Pick (OGRP)
and Automated Frameload (AFL), which will bring new levels of
efficiency and labour productivity to the Kroger Delivery network.
These innovations will enable Kroger to further drive down their
cost to serve from CFCs, and enhance an already market-leading
customer proposition.
Ocado's global partners are upgrading
their distribution networks with Ocado's latest technologies, with
AEON in Japan recently announcing it will also retrofit Ocado's
On-Grid Robotic Pick technology into its existing operations. This
technology is already rolling out in UK CFCs, where it is picking
an increasingly wide range of items. At full capacity, OGRP is
expected to pick more than 70% of an extensive online grocery
range.
Tim Steiner, CEO of Ocado Group,
said:
"We
are delivering a step-change in warehouse automation and new levels
of efficiency to our partners as global supply chains are under
significant pressure to manage higher volumes and greater
complexity, as well as challenges in labour cost and
availability.
Today marks another exciting milestone in our partnership with
Kroger. Our current CFCs are already helping to deliver a
game-changing quality of service to their customers across the USA.
We are excited for these latest technologies to further enhance
that proposition, as well as the efficiency of Kroger's operations
in live and future CFCs."
Contacts:
● Tim Steiner,
Chief Executive Officer on +44 1707 228 000
● Stephen Daintith, Chief Financial Officer on +44 1707 228
000
● Nick Coulter, Head of Investor Relations on +44 1707 228
000
● Jamie Kerr, Head of Communications on +44 1707 228
000
● Lucy Legh, Headland Consultancy - ocadogroup@headlandconsultancy.com
on +44 (0) 20 3805
4822
Notes to Editors
About On-Grid Robotic Pick
On-Grid Robotic Pick (OGRP) is a
robotic arm that is installed directly on the grid. The bots
operating on the grid deposit stock next to the robot arms to be
packed into customer bags. Ocado's retail partners can stock up to
50,000 different products each. Robot arms need to be able to deal
with a huge amount of variety of weight, size, shape, surface,
fragility and packaging.
Advanced machine vision, deep
reinforcement learning, and sensing capabilities enable OGRP to
pick tens of thousands of products and pack them densely into bags
with precision and accuracy.
About Automated Frameload
Automated Frameload (AFL) automates
the most physically demanding job in the warehouse - the loading of
prepared customer orders onto delivery frames ready for dispatch.
AFL enables the efficient and accurate loading of delivery totes
without human touch.
Computer vision examines the tote and
the frame, forms an understanding of the dimensions and shape of
the tote and enables alignment with the frame, making direction
adjustments in real time to push the tote in.
About
Ocado Group
Ocado Group is a UK based technology
company trading on the London Stock Exchange
(Ticker OCDO). It provides end-to-end
online grocery fulfilment solutions to thirteen of the
world's largest grocery retailers and
holds a 50% share of Ocado Retail Ltd in the UK in a Joint Venture
with Marks & Spencer. Ocado has spent two decades innovating
for grocery online, investing in a wide technology estate that
includes robotics, AI & machine learning, simulation,
forecasting, and edge intelligence.
Person responsible for arranging the
release of this announcement:
Neill Abrams
Group General Counsel and Company Secretary
Ocado Group plc
Buildings One & Two, Trident
Place, Mosquito Way,
Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10
9UL
email:
company.secretary@ocado.com
Ocado Group plc LEI:
213800LO8F61YB8MBC74