Autonomous HGV manufacturer Einride has announced the deployment of full-time operations with its autonomous vehicle. The operations are a step forward in the integration of autonomous transportation supporting commercial flows.
The daily transport of finished goods takes place between the GE Appliances’ manufacturing facility and the warehouse in Selmer, TN, Monday through Thursday, enabling up to seven shuttles a day, producing zero tailpipe emissions through the autonomous operation.
This long-term deployment follows previous pilots done in collaboration with GE Appliances, first in a gated environment at the company’s Appliance Park headquarters in 2021, followed by the first public road pilot in the US for a purpose-built autonomous, electric truck without a driver on board in Selmer in 2022.
“We are very proud to partner with GEA and be able to lead the industry in providing autonomous technology and deploying it in the strongest commercial use case today,” said Henrik Green, General Manager, of Autonomous Technologies at Einride. “We look forward to continuing this work to establish autonomous key role in transportation, both with GEA and other partners across markets.”
The Einride autonomous vehicle is part of a larger interoperability project in Selmer to create an automated logistics flow that improves employee ergonomics and safety around the loading docks and increases efficiency.
Additional GE Appliances partners include TaskWatch and Slip Robotics. TaskWatch’s AI cameras trigger a control board to raise and lower the dock doors, and dock plate, lock the Einride autonomous vehicle into place and notify the Slip robot that the autonomous vehicle is ready for loading. The Slip then autonomously loads and unloads the vehicle, reducing loading times by 80%. Einride’s connectivity partner Ericsson provided the private network to ensure reliable communication between the vehicle and the remote operator on site.
Tiffany Heathcott, the first remote operator hired by Einride, is onsite to monitor the vehicle.
“Our partnership with Einride in Selmer reflects our evolved approach to robotics and automation technology,” says Harry Chase, Senior Director of Central Materials at GE Appliances. “We are moving from implementing one-off solutions addressing various challenges to creating interoperability among systems that can build consistency and streamline processes in our factories and throughout our supply chain. This implementation in Selmer is helping us reduce emissions, allowing our employees to focus on high-value tasks, reducing traffic in congested areas to create a safer work environment, and eliminating some of the most challenging ergonomic tasks like climbing on and off a forklift and hooking and unhooking trailers. We believe robotics and automation technology should work with and for people to improve their jobs.”