The material handling industry has been plagued by labor shortages and high-turnover rates, while simultaneously struggling to react to e-commerce demand reaching all-time highs. To address these problems, leading facilities in the industrial sector are increasingly turning to self-driving equipment like Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) to increase adaptability and throughput. Listen to the recent Advanced Manufacturing Now podcast to hear from Jeff Huerta, VP of Sales at Vecna Robotics, about how profitable facilities are using intelligent autonomous equipment to not only outlast, but come out ahead in turbulent conditions. Learn why autonomous vehicles like self-driving forklifts, pallet movers, and tuggers are more effective than ever before in creating a competitive advantage manufacturing, distribution and warehousing. Over 4 billion pallets are moved everyday on a global scale, with a good deal of that being non value-added travel.

Austin-based Fox Robotics is announcing the close of a $9 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures, one of the most respected venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, and the addition of Mark Siegel, partner at Menlo Ventures, to its board of directors. Additional investors include Eniac Ventures, La Famiglia, SignalFire, Congruent Ventures and AME Cloud Ventures. Fox makes self-driving forklifts that are more flexible, more capable and safer than current AGV's. Fox's forklifts can tackle challenging tasks that no other automation can handle, such as unloading trailers without modifying the warehouse environment. Fox's forklifts can be installed and running in a new warehouse in less than a day, compared to the weeks or months that typical AGV's take for integration.