EXPRESS COMPUTER | APRIL, 2017
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INTERVIEW
AI enabled robots can enable customers to have better control over inventory levels ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE has transformed the world of robots. GreyOrange, a robotics firm that specializes in deploying advanced robots for automation at warehouses and distribution centers, is using robots that use machine-learning algorithms to dynamically adapt to inventory consumption patterns and optimize storage in a warehouse. Ashish Bindal, Global Head, Solutions, GreyOrange, shares with EC, how AI-enabled robots are transforming the world of warehouse management Some edited excerpts: Compared to traditional robots, how are artificialintelligence (AI) enabled robots different? Artificial intelligence enabled solutions are designed to demonstrate human like decision-making capabilities. These robots are able to react to various expected /unexpected AI-enabled situations. The robots are reaction also able to react improves with time and to various experience. expected These machines can /unexpected learn from situations their usage patterns, just like humans do. Rather than working upon a static algorithm designed to work in a predictable environment, these robots have a dynamic algorithm which learns from the past experiences and becomes better with usage. Can you give us some specific use cases or
examples of customers on how AI has helped GreyOrange in automating inventory management? What have been the efficiency improvements year on year? GreyOrange Butler is a robotic automation solution that receives inputs from various sources in the warehouse and helps optimize the operations in the warehouse. The system is designed in a way that the Butlers bring right racks to humans instead of humans going to racks. The operators stand at their place and pick/put the products from these racks. GreyOrange Butler solution enabled by artificial intelligence, can understand that in a particular season, the products stored in certain racks can have a higher demand as compared to the others. For example, during Diwali, businesses often see utensils sold in great volumes. The Butler picks up this pattern and starts placing racks with utensils nearer to the operator, thereby ensuring quick turnaround time for orders and increasing efficiency.
Moreover, AI-enabled Butlers also equip the customers to have better control in the inventory levels and do support FIFO (First in First out), FMFO (First manufactured out) etc. Basis the inventory movement, the position of racks in the warehouse is decided in such a manner that the pick /put operations results in a faster turnaround time for an operation in the warehouse. This improves the overall efficiency of the pick/put operations in the warehouses. This has resulted in the operator picking efficiency getting better up to 5x vis-a vis
traditional systems. Currently, most robots in a warehouse are created or designed with a fixed number of package sizes in mind. If the sizes or weights of packages are changed, can GreyOrange's robots learn by themselves and adapt? GreyOrange solutions have been designed to manage racks, cases and a combination of both to enable multiple types of order fulfillment. The racks of the solutions are modular in nature and can be configured as per the Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) profile of the customer. For example, lighter SKUs can be at the top and heavier at the bottom. What are the types of data sets and the sources of data sets that is used by GreyOrange to understand and improve efficiency? We understand customer inventory data, days on hand for inventory, SKU details Length, breadth, height and weight, seasonality of SKUs, order line in an order, number of lines in an order etc. We also understand customer business growth,
projections to design future proof solutions. The size of the warehouse, daily through-put, peaks and criteria of success for automation are also taken into consideration to design a robust automation solution for a customer. Please share names and experiences of clients who
are using AI enabled robots We provide our warehouse automation solutions to some of the largest brands in e-commerce logistics, consumer packaged goods (FMCG) and Retail space around the world. All our clients use artificial intelligence enabled
solutions. Some of them are Flipkart,Myntra,Jabong and Pepperfry, Aramex, DTDC, Delhivery, Kerry Logistics (in Hong Kong), and Gojavas. Clients have realized ability of systems to manage peaks seamlessly, improvement in operator efficiency, predictability and real-time data tracking to take business decisions.
Together we are better placed to do things that we couldn’t uniquely do before: Dell EMC AFTER THE merger of Dell EMC, Dell’s alliance organisation and EMC’s alliance organization have been merged into a team. From a combined opportunity perspective globally, now Dell EMC alliance has a full stack in its portfolio to do things that it couldn’t uniquely do before, like providing an end to end solution. In an interview with Mohd Ujaley, Jay Snyder, Senior Vice President, Global Alliances, Service Providers and Industries, Dell EMC says that the value chain is now 100% complete. Please tell us about the role of Global Alliances. We have specific responsibility for our 17 most strategic global partnerships which include both system integrators and outsourcers. We also have responsibilities for Dell EMC global service provider program. We have services for our From a industry team focused on combined healthcare, opportunity energy, gas, perspective , finance, manufathe real cturing, etc. advantage Global Alliances is for us now is part of the to have a full market function of the stack in our company. We portfolio dramatically changed the organisation about a year and half ago and there are a couple of big changes for our 17 partners. We are focused on building a business plan with each partner for market strategy. A differentiation model is in place to try and create solutions around
either geography, technology or industry. Today we are much more industry aligned, which is a great thing. How is Global Alliances placed after the merger of Dell and EMC? We combined the two organisations on day one of the merger, which was September 7, 2016. We brought Dell’s alliance organisation into EMC’s alliance organisation, and have taken the best practices of their strategy and relationships to be a part of our team. From a combined opportunity perspective globally, the real advantage for us now is to have a full stack in our portfolio to allow us to do things that we couldn’t uniquely do before, like providing end-to-end, from literally the tablet through the compute through the storage to all the way to the backup. The value chain is now 100% complete. We can build and deliver the entire stack. The strategy and vision has remained consistent. Opportunistically, the market share that EMC had with its partners in the overall market was at a level or even
greater than EMC's core sales team. So, we are probably 30% to 50% share of wallet with a lot of these partners. Dell had a much lower share of wallet with the same partner. Now, the opportunity that is immediately in front of us is to get equal share of wallet cross Dell's portfolio with the same exact partners and we are actively working on that. It is advantageous to all of us to create an economy of efficiency for our partners and also creating revenue opportunity for Dell EMC. What kind of impact Dell EMC would have on companies such as Pivotal, Virtustream, VMware, RSA, Nutanix and others? We have only been together now for a few months. There is a lot of aspirational desire to go and work across the portfolio of Dell Technology which includes Pivotal, Virtustream, VMware and RSA. We are also focused on creating efficiency in models that allow our partners like TCS and HCL to take advantage of that full technology stack. We are still figuring some
of those things out. Michael clearly has the desire and mandate for us to do that. We are trying for an integrated business plan across all of Dell Technologies with partners. It is the next evolution that is going to give us some of the things that you are asking. Are you planning to launch any new alliance program? The channel in alliances has always been distinctly different. In the last year and a half a lot of the traditional resellers are trying to transition their business to stay current and maintain relevancy. John Burn is the president of the channels for Dell EMC. John and I have spent a lot of time talking about this. We have come out with a single partner program. So, all partners will be a part of the Dell EMC partner program. Within the partner program, we have three branches – channel, service provider, and global systems integrators. All the partners have a similar look and feel relative to tiers. We have four tiers.
The value chain is now 100% complete. We can build and deliver the entire stack. The strategy and vision has remained consistent
There are many products that are overlapping within Dell EMC. How will you address this challenge ? Honestly, I don’t have to worry about this. It is being driven by product engineering and product marketing. Our CTO office is leading the charge. John has been looking over this since a year and they define the future roadmap and future strategy around products. They determine if we are having overlaps and whether it is fine to keep overlaps and where do we want to rationalise the portfolio. I am a consumer of what they build. Personally, I love to see them resolve this sooner and get clearer on the strategic roadmap for all the product lineups. So, I am sure when I am betting on a particular product with my partner it is going to be a long standing viable solution. I do have somebody on my staff, so to answer your question who reports to me and also to the Dell EMC CTO, he makes sure that as I am building solutions for my partners, I am aligning up with the overall product roadmap we have as a company and not investing
heavily on something that is going to phase out in 6 to 12 months. How has been your India experience? We continue to have a phenomenal partner segment in India with HCL, TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant, Tech Mahindra. We are really excited about the opportunities with these firms. I continue to prioritise the partnerships in India. At the top of the list are some of the most critical partnerships for us for growth in the future. We have done significant investments in taking our engineers who build our products out of our center of excellence in Bangalore and use them to train the technical resources within the partners. We started it six months ago and today we have trained 384 engineers across our 5 partners in India. It goes both ways, we trained them how to use the product and they have given us feedback on how to modify the product. It’s been an exceptional two way relationship and we will continue to do that in 2017.