An anti-bacterial hand gel for Boots UK was the 200 millionth item to be picked by a Locus Robotics autonomous mobile robots earlier this month. 

Locus Robotics Chief Executive Rich Faulk said the milestone came as “more and more” shoppers were moving online in what is expected to be the biggest – and most challenging – Christmas peak to date.

“Retailers are turning to AMRs to innovate to meet growing demand and avoid risking losing valuable customers,” he said.

Ken Hall, Supply Chain Development Manager, Boots UK, said: “The flexibility of the Locus system to scale as the demand grows has been key to our success. The autonomous nature of the LocusBots has also been instrumental in worker health and safety, enforcing social distancing through such a busy period while also delivering significant productivity improvement.”

Last year Boots UK revealed it had deployed 135 cobots at its Burton warehouse to assist workers in delivering some three million items to customers in the build up to Black Friday in 2019.