Active Ants relies on AI robotics from Sereact

Active Ants currently offers 45 companies e-fulfilment services at its logistics center in Dorsten, including value-added services such as packaging and individually printed cardboard boxes. The service provider's target groups include small to medium-sized web sellers from a wide range of industries such as cosmetics, healthcare, food supplements, small electronics such as toys and cell phones as well as fashion with a focus on the functional clothing segment.

Automation for a wide range of requirements

"Given the wide variety of products and industries that we process at the Dorsten site, we needed an innovative solution for our picking processes in order to be able to supply our customers more efficiently, quickly and reliably in future. Current developments in the field of artificial intelligence have created the conditions for this. We opted for the AI-based robotics solution from Sereact, which impressed us in a test run lasting several months. With its disruptive approach, the system sets new standards in the field of automation and fits our needs and requirements perfectly," explains Jeroen Duijts, Managing Director at Active Ants Germany.

The heart of Sereact's robotics system is the AI, which, unlike competitor systems, does not rely on article master data, but instead uses cameras and vision systems to recognize objects with a variety of structures and shapes and autonomously defines the optimal movement sequences for the robot arm as part of zero-shot reasoning. As a result, it requires less training time to recognize and process objects and ensures greater efficiency and time savings in picking processes. A test run of the system involving Active Ants' Operational Excellence team has been running successfully at the Dorsten site since the beginning of the year. The system has been fully integrated into regular operations since July.

Looking for new solutions in automation

"The demands on modern warehouse applications are increasing. Among other things, this is due to increasing stock keeping units, greater variability of stored products and constantly changing flows of goods. Successful automation of intralogistics processes therefore increasingly requires solutions that take a different approach to tried-and-tested technologies. With the extended use of AI in combination with the use of visual data and autonomous decisions by robots, we have created an application that addresses precisely this issue. We are proud to be able to convince Active Ants of the capabilities of AI-based robotics and look forward to further cooperation," explains Ralf Gulde, CEO & Co-Founder at Sereact.

Active Ants has specialized in e-commerce logistics since the company was founded in 2010 and provides a range of services relating to inventory management, shipping and returns processing, as well as value-added services. Active Ants currently has four locations across Europe and employs around 450 people. The shipping volume amounts to over 7 million consignments per year. It has been part of the Belgian Post since 2018.