Nimble makes the leap to fully automated third-party logistics warehouses

There’s a long-standing debate in the world of logistics robotics. On one side stand the greenfield folk, who insist that the best possible experience is one built from the ground up, with these automated systems at its core. Brownfield proponents, on the other hand, point to the time and money required for a full rebuild. Many firms looking to automate their warehouses simply don’t have the resources to effectively start from scratch.

Most people ultimately land on some combination of these approaches. After all, no one size fits all. This morning, Nimble is announcing plans its own third-way compromise. It’s a method that lets companies effectively outsource their warehousing needs through fully automated third-party logistics (3PL) factories.

Founder and CEO Simon Kalouche says that Nimble's new model wasn’t the goal when the pick and pack robotic automation firm launched in 2017. “It evolved as we learned about the industry,” he tells TechCrunch. “I’ve been in hundreds of warehouses now, and as I went to more and more, I learned that everyone’s automating almost all the pieces of the warehouse, but picking is still the hardest part. Until you automate picking, you need people in the warehouse. You need to make warehouses ergonomic, safe and OSHA compliant for people. When you automate the picking step, you remove all of those constraints.”

Image Credits: Nimble

Kalouche says the company has already begun operating its own third-party fulfillment centers, quietly opening the first roughly a year ago. He won’t disclose how many are currently online, only that the figure is “between one and 10” and the locations are geographically dispersed across the U.S. I its press material, the company explains that its “intelligent robotic fulfillment systems will autonomously pick, pack and ship e-commerce orders while reducing warehouse size by up to 75%. Nimble's network of robotic warehouses will provide brands 96%+ U.S. population coverage in one-two days and click-to-collect savings of up to 40% compared to legacy 3PL providers.”

While it’s not same-day, it takes online retailers a step closer to the thing they most want these days -- something that can help somewhat level the playing field against Amazon’s 800-pound gorilla. That’s the promise of third-party warehouse automation writ large -- though Amazon has its own growing army of robots.

Nimble’s advantage is the prevalence of autonomous systems. Kalouche notes that it hasn’t yet achieved a fully lights out factory just yet. “There are still manual operations,” he says. “Our goal is to work toward the dark warehouse. We’re still working toward that, but we’re not there yet. But the picking is an automated function.”