Locus Robotics and Kimball Midwest Won Supply Chain Award
The partnership achieved a return on investment in under a year while significantly boosting warehouse picking speed.
Updated on Sept. 21, 2026 in Robotics
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Locus Robotics and Kimball Midwest received the 2026 Supply Chain Excellence Award for a warehouse automation deployment. The project successfully scaled across three facilities within 14 months.
Why it matters
The deployment demonstrates how integrating autonomous mobile robots into legacy infrastructure can increase throughput without requiring facility reconfigurations. This allows firms to maintain strict same-day shipping commitments while managing fluctuating labor demand.
The system utilizes a fleet of over 100 autonomous mobile robots to process 13.2 million picked lines and one million put-away lines. Productivity metrics show a 45% increase in picking efficiency compared to manual workflows.
The players
Locus Robotics
A developer of autonomous mobile robot systems designed to integrate into existing retail and industrial warehouse environments.
Kimball Midwest
A national industrial supplier providing maintenance, repair, and operation products to commercial and industrial customers.
The details
Kimball Midwest integrated autonomous mobile robots—warehouse vehicles that move items to and from storage locations—directly into its existing site layouts without replacing shelving or pallet racks. Management software enables operators to dynamically reallocate labor between picking, putaway, and replenishment tasks based on real-time fulfillment volume.
Timeline
1923: Kimball Midwest began operations.
January 2024: Initial robotics deployment occurred at the Columbus facility.
2025: Locus Robotics first received the Supply Chain Excellence Award.
2026: Locus Robotics and Kimball Midwest were honored in Dallas.
The Tech Race
This win follows the precedent set by the 2025 Supply Chain Excellence Award, which Locus Robotics also secured. The back-to-back recognition reinforces the firm's standing as a leading provider of scalable automation for existing warehouse footprints.
Warehouse operators can look to this deployment as a benchmark for scaling automation within one year while maintaining 99.9% same-day shipping performance. The system's ability to operate in existing facilities without structural changes suggests a lower barrier to entry for similar distribution centers.
The takeaway
The primary takeaway is that legacy warehouse infrastructure can achieve rapid ROI through flexible robotic integration. Future industry trends to watch include the continued adoption of dynamic labor allocation software as companies push for higher lines-per-hour metrics.
Further reading
For more on industry automation benchmarks, visit the Robotics section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Themachinemaker.
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