Assisted Picking Robots Scale Across a Global Contract Logistics Network

Scaling picking labor across a sprawling contract network

A contract logistics provider handles inventory for many clients, and each client brings its own order profiles, SKUs and service levels. Picking is the labor-heavy core of that work, and it has to flex with demand that rarely arrives evenly across sites.

Walking is the hidden cost. In a traditional pick, associates spend a large share of each shift traveling between locations instead of handling product, and every added site multiplies that travel. A network operator needs a method that improves picking without rebuilding each building around new equipment.

The operator also needed a model it could repeat. A single successful building proves little about the others in a network, so the real question was whether one robot platform and one working method could travel across many facilities.

One picking method, extended site by site

The model at the center of this case is an autonomous mobile robot workflow. Robots carry totes to the picker, and people handle the steps that still need human judgment: picking each item and verifying it before the order moves on. The robot covers the travel and the person covers the selection.

According to the robot supplier's public material, the arrangement has run in production since 2017 and has grown into a network of managed sites. Expansion continues across additional facilities.

A shared workflow is what makes a network rollout manageable. When each facility runs the same basic pattern, training, supervision and service can be planned once and then adapted to local layouts.

• Robots carry totes from storage to the picking location
• Associates pick each item and verify it against the order
• The workflow runs on one supplier platform across managed sites
• Expansion extends the same model to additional facilities over time

What the network reach shows

The clearest result is scale. The robot supplier reports active robot fleets at more than 40 managed sites in 2026, running as a production network rather than a pilot program.

Site-level throughput, uptime and staffing are not published, so the story is one of reach and repeatability rather than per-site productivity. No single facility's pick rate is offered here as a benchmark.

What the network does show is that a robot-assisted picking method can run in production for years and across many facilities, with people and robots each handling the part of the task they do best.

Where a network rollout meets a service plan

A network that scales picking robots depends as much on selection, integration, training and service as on the robot itself. That is the work Service Robot Co. does. As an OEM-neutral commercial robot integrator for US businesses, we select the right robots across manufacturers, then finance, deploy, integrate, train and service every unit through a nationwide US engineer network.

For a warehouse weighing AMR-assisted picking, we begin with a site assessment. Customers lease the robots on a 3-year lease, with one fixed payment quoted after that assessment, so the commitment is clear before the first unit arrives.

Robot leasing for business works best when one partner holds the whole lifecycle, from the first walkthrough to the service call. One point of contact is the practical lesson any operator weighing warehouse robot leasing can take from a network of this size.