Corvus Robotics said ASICS America is flying Corvus One autonomous inventory drones at its Byhalia, Mississippi distribution center, where nightly missions have lifted counting frequency sixfold in two high-risk storage areas now counted monthly. ASICS reports recovering misplaced inventory about 60 percent faster and redirecting roughly 200 hours of monthly counting labor into research and exception resolution. The site holds close to 3 million units across roughly 44,000 SKUs, and the drones surfaced 26 misplaced cases holding more than 200 pairs of shoes in a single three-month stretch.
According to Robotics & Automation News, Corvus Robotics has announced that ASICS America Corporation is operating Corvus One autonomous inventory drones inside its Byhalia, Mississippi distribution center, where nightly flights have increased counting frequency sixfold in two of the building’s highest-risk storage areas, which are now counted monthly.
ASICS reports recovering misplaced inventory roughly 60 percent faster since the system was installed, and has redirected about 200 hours of monthly counting labor into inventory research and exception resolution.
The facility holds close to 3 million units — 2.3 million pairs of footwear and 700,000 pieces of apparel and accessories — across roughly 44,000 SKUs, all managed in a Manhattan Associates warehouse management system. It fills e-commerce orders and ships to wholesale accounts, along with ASICS full-price and outlet retail stores.
Two storage profiles move from twice-yearly to monthly counts
Corvus One covers two storage profiles in the building: the singles area, where returned and single-pair product is stored and picked, and case reserve. Both were counted twice a year under ASICS cycle count policy before the drones arrived.
Kyle Koestler, senior director of distribution and transportation at ASICS America Corporation, said the previous counting cadence left errors buried for long stretches and put accepted orders at risk of cancellation.
“If a unit went missing, we might not find it for six months. That could be the last pair in the building for an order we’ve already taken, and then the customer gets a cancellation. With Corvus One, we’re cycle counting on a monthly basis so we can surface any errors sooner and ensure customer orders are delivered on time.” — Kyle Koestler, senior director of distribution and transportation at ASICS America Corporation
The 200 hours a month freed from manual counting went into work the inventory control team is better suited to, including inventory reconciliation in the packing operation, root cause research, and special projects for the wholesale side of the business.
Drone flights surface 26 misplaced cases in one quarter
In one three-month stretch, the drones surfaced 26 misplaced cases holding more than 200 pairs of shoes — product that would otherwise have stayed unavailable to customers until the next scheduled physical count.
In both areas the drone does two jobs on the same pass, reading every UPC and counting the boxes in each location. In the singles area, returns mean the same SKU can show up several times in one location, so a UPC read on its own can get attached to the wrong box. Counting the boxes gives ASICS a physical total to check the scans against; if the drone counts 10 boxes, it should come back with 10 UPC reads.
ASICS schedules seven flights a night, starting around 7pm. The very narrow aisles the drones fly in are less than 6 feet wide, and Corvus One navigates them using onboard computer vision and spatial reasoning, with no additional infrastructure anywhere in the building. The following morning an inventory associate reviews each flight and resolves most discrepancies from a desk, working off the video and images captured at every location.
Full marketplace feed replaces withheld units
The accuracy shows up on the revenue side as well. ASICS publishes availability feeds to online marketplaces, and before Corvus One the team held back 12 to 15 units out of every 100 because the tail of the inventory chain carried fulfillment risk.
Product at the bottom of that tail never appeared on the marketplace, leaving liquidation at a steep discount as the alternative. ASICS now publishes the full feed and sells that product at full price.
“A footwear distribution center carrying tens of thousands of SKUs across every channel is one of the more complex inventory environments in the industry. Operators like ASICS keep those buildings accurate, and that has always taken a lot of manual counting. Corvus One takes that work on autonomously, in the areas that see the most handling and tend to produce the most discrepancies, so orders ship on time and product sells at full price.” — Mohammed Kabir, CEO and co-founder of Corvus Robotics
Taking those counts off the floor also means fewer hours of lift equipment running through the aisles, which feeds another ASICS priority. The Byhalia facility is LEED Silver certified and draws about half its power from an on-site solar array; ASICS counts the Corvus One deployment among the programs supporting its sustainability goals.
Source: Robotics & Automation News
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
