When it comes to modern day Logistics, flexible and affordable automation is the need of the hour This can be achieved by adding sense think act capabilities to machines and software systems, leveraging robotics, computer vision and deep learning technologies. Hyderabad based Autonomous Logistics Technologies(ALOG TECH) is disrupting the market with this vision of 'Autonomous Logistics',a synergistic combination of autonomous logistics systems and autonomous material handling/ transportation equipment". The company is developing a new generation Autonomous Warehouse Control System(AWACS) that dynamically plans work and directs a fleet of Autonomous Carts for Distribution Centers(ACDCTM) and other equipment to complete them. "Together they make an Autonomous Warehouse (24x7 unmanned fulfilment center) a reality in the near future!" exclaims Raghuram Nanduri, Founder.

AWACS by ALOG TECH assigns tasks to the Autonomous Carts dynamically to pick more orders in less time and with less physical effort. The Autonomous Carts are multipurpose and can be used for a variety of tasks including order picking, inventory put away, shelf stock replenishment, cycle counting etc. and as shuttles between predefined points in a facility. They can be customized and/or programmed for customer specific requirements. “With our solution, workers spend less time and energy walking and pushing. This will double productivity and half the pick pack ship cycle time, resulting in lower order fulfilment cost and better customer service. We are

working on pilot projects with a few leading logistics service providers and manufacturing companies,”enlightens Raghuram.

To stay competitive Indian companies should seriously adopt new generation automation solutions like what we provide. These solutions are not capital intensive and can pay back in 1-2 years

The Beginning Raghuram has several years of experience developing, implementing and selling software solutions for ware housing and transportation. During his professional stint as the Regional Director for RedPrairie(now JDA) a US based leader in supply chain and retail software, he noticed the huge value delivered by these software applications and also realised their limitations and problems in the automation of material handling. This is when he felt a dire need of intelligent, flexible and affordable automation solutions which can coexist with shop floor workers. "This was validated when Amazon acquired Kiva (for $775mn) to automate their fulfilment centres. In a rather fortuitous meeting with Prof Madhav Krishna, head of Robotics Research Center at IIIT Hyderabad, I decided to pursue the idea and ALOG TECH was born in 2016," he asserts.

The journey, since then, has been quite challenging. Robotics being a multidisciplinary deep tech field, the team has encountered difficulties to develop a robust product with limited resources and budgets. "We were fortunate to attract a few bright engineers from top institutes who were passionate about robotics and loved working on tough problems. And as we choose to boot strap till we had a prototype it was all the tougher financially. But the constant stream of inquiries from large companies across the globe gave us strength and kept us going!" he mentions.

The Future Looks Bright
Over the years, ALOG TECH has been supported by the Robotics Research Center of IIIT Hyderabad highly ranked globally in robotics research. This combined with the founding team's industry experience has helped then team imbibe a culture of innovation and applied research to solve real world industry problems. The company has also been associated with leading deep tech accelerators and has greatly benefited from Startup India and NASSCOM.

In the coming years, team ALOG TECH plan to first execute the pilot projects successfully and fulfil the large number of requests they have received from leading Indian companies."We are also exploring partnerships to provide end-to-end solutions and better support to customers. We are aiming to close an institutional round soon to enable this," concludes Raghuram.