Whether using workcell-based or line-based manufacturing, manufacturers are deploying autonomous tugger trains of carts to transport kits or totes from warehouses or tote supermarkets to lines or workcells.

While autonomous tuggers alleviate the need for a manufacturer to staff tugger drivers and also upskill tugger drivers to handle more complex tasks, there is still labor required to transfer totes from tugger carts to lines or workcells.

This involves either the line or workcell associate to stop working at their station and transfer the kits or totes to replenish materials so that they can continue to work, or hire lower skilled labor to service multiple line positions or workcells. Neither situation is ideal.

Apollo, our general-purpose humanoid robot, can work in conjunction with autonomous tuggers to fully automate the kit or tote-based lineside or workcell delivery process and eliminate the need for humans to manually transfer totes to lines or workcells from tugger carts.

This enables line or workcell operators to work without interruption or the upskilling of lower skilled labor assigned to service multiple line or workcell positions. As Apollo is a general purpose robot, it can handle different tasks is a manufacturing plant and task switch throughout the day.

While there are a million forms of special purpose automation that do one or two tasks, Apollo will be able to do millions of tasks, especially those that humans don’t want to do.