Introducing: A new, occasional column
Dear Buyers: Know Your Vendors
Simply put: Who are these people and what do they want with my money?
In an age of too much, sometimes a little information is more useful than a lot.
Introducing: An occasional column that strives to simplify the complexities of buying automation technology. Quick reads that offer simple insights into the nature of those pursuing your “buy decision” and what they are really all about.
The Five Amigos and Their New Company:
Addverb Technologies (founded 2016)
Sangeet Kumar, Satish Shukla, Amit Kumar, Bir Singh, Prateek Jain, and were working at Asian Paints factory at Rohtak, the largest paint plant in India, they realized that there was not a single supplier who was well-versed with conventional as well as flexible automation. The vacuum left a regular consumer struggling to find different sets of suppliers and getting them to understand their requirements.
Dear Buyers: What we know
What we know is that transformative automation is accelerating for both you and your competitors. We know that all of you must automate or jeopardize your businesses and their futures. We know that the vendor community is a near-bewildering mass of hundreds of logos and associated tech gear. Navigating it is daunting.
You’re also hip deep in an age of rapid consolidation: robot and automation developers are gobbling each other up; acquiring, partnering and otherwise altering all those logos and tech into yet evermore layers of confusion in the technology mix. It will be a while yet before it all plays out. In the interim, what?
Plus, you’re in everyone’s database, and sophisticated marketing tools seem to pummel your inbox, telephone and gatekeepers with requests for an audience with you. We know that you are so busy with your own business that you have scant time to sit through the pitch decks of even a few of these vendors, weigh them against others, and come to a good decision. Unrelentingly, that scenario plays itself out throughout every one of your workdays…and ofttimes weekends, too.
Nevertheless, decisions must be made if your business is to survive and thrive.
Automation is a necessity. And you know it. What next?
Well, why not get to know a little about the technology makers with whom you’ll entrust your company, your treasure, and your future?
We thought so. Here’s some help.
Today’s Dear Buyers: Know Your Vendors is about Addverb Technologies* and comes to us from the pages of YOURSTORY and Money Control.
In 2016, Five former Asian Paints executives set out to transform the functioning of supply chain operations.
Both Sangeet and Prateek have around 13 years of industry experience, each in companies like GAIL (India) Limited and ITC Limited, while Amit has more than a decade’s experience with companies such as Infosys. Satish is a technology evangelist with five years of experience, while Bir has worked with organizations such as JK White Cement Works Gotan, and ITC Limited, apart from Asian Paints, for more than 16 years.
The Noida-based startup (Noida, short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, adjacent to Delhi, is known as “Bot Valley”) is an intra-logistics automation solution provider. It builds robotics and automation solutions for factories and warehouses. The idea is to automate laborious tasks related to the storage and movement of goods in controlled environments.
It leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning, automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS), shuttles, IoT along with their in-house software solutions to improve the performance and accuracy of warehouse and factory operations.
The company has a manufacturing facility in Noida with the capacity to make 50,000 different types of robots a year.
*Addverb Technologies is an advertiser with Asian Robotics Review
Addverb offers robots under concepts such as pick to light, pick by voice, pallet shuttle and yard management.
Under pick to light, picking zone light beams when a product is ready to be moved. Pick by voice feature allows a factory operator to use voice commands to confirm what has been picked and dispatched.
Pallet shuttle is a battery-operated system to move products between aisles, while yard management involves identifying the location of a product in a yard.
Addverb leverages automation technologies like IoT, Machine Learning, Robotics, ASRS, Shuttle, Artificial Intelligence, and Augmented Reality to make supply chain efficient and effective.
The company is looking forward to leveraging 5G, battery technology through new energy initiatives, advances in material sciences (carbon fiber) to deliver more advanced and affordable robots.
The company has 100+ clients across India: Amazon, Flipkart, ITC, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Jio Mart, and Unilever, etc.
Addverb’s end-to-end product portfolio enables complete automation of warehouses and factories, and has further expanded to hospitals and airports. It is working to improve the throughput and accuracy levels of warehouses and factories.
“In the next 5-6 years, we want to be a billion-dollar company in revenue ($27 million in FY 2020-21). We do everything in India: design, manufacture and deliver across the world,” said CEO Sangeet Kumar.
One of the biggest milestones at Addverb was getting orders for seven automated warehouses for Jiomart. “Jiomart launched four years back and they chose us amongst all the 20 players who pitched for this project. I think that was one turning point for us. The other turning point was delivering a fully automated warehouse for Unilever,” recalls Sangeet Kumar.
"We want to be the world’s largest mobile robotics company in the next five to six years.”
