Agreement will lead to first RightPick deployments in the Japanese market

BOSTON, MA - March 19, 2019 - RightHand Robotics (RHR), a leader in providing integrated robotic piece-picking solutions, has partnered with PALTAC CORPORATION, Japan's largest wholesaler of consumer packaged goods. The collaboration will introduce RightHand's newest piece-picking solution to the Japanese market, with multiple workstations to be installed in PALTAC's newest facility, RDC Saitama, opening later in 2019 in Sugito, Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

Japan represents a huge and growing market for automation as the world's second-largest retail sector, with annual sales exceeding $1.3 trillion. As the country's leading wholesaler of cosmetics, daily necessities, and general pharmaceutical products, PALTAC sought a robotic piece-picking solution to further automate operations by picking and placing items of varying size, weight, and shape. The PALTAC leadership team chose to implement RightPick, an intelligent and integrated solution that can reliably pick and place a range of items, including never-before-seen objects, at a high rate.
"Our RDC Saitama facility will stock over 20,000 SKUs every year," said Masakazu Mikita, General Manager of Research and Development at PALTAC CORPORATION. "In order to handle such a large number of different and densely packed items, we needed a piece-picking solution that combined advanced gripping systems with continuous machine learning and unerring reliability. RightPick met all of our high-level requirements; we're confident in the system's ability to successfully pick a wide variety of items without prior knowledge or programming."
Driven by the rapid shift to online shopping and the growing demands of e-commerce order fulfillment, RightHand's RightPick platform addresses these challenges with integrated AI software and gripping hardware that can handle the repetitive task of picking and placing individual items within various customer workflows.
"We are thrilled to be working with PALTAC and to introduce our solution to the Japanese market," said Leif Jentoft, co-founder of RightHand Robotics. "As PALTAC continues to grow and expand operations, RightPick will be a valuable contributor to their business strategy. We're very excited for the opportunity to implement our latest technology in their new facility."
In December 2018, RightHand Robotics raised $23 million in a Series B funding round. The company is rapidly expanding its business and technical teams and broadening its suite of products and applications in support of a growing worldwide customer base.
About RightHand Robotics
RightHand Robotics is a leader in providing robotic piece-picking solutions that improve performance and efficiency in e-commerce order fulfillment and intralogistics. Its RightPick product platform is a software-driven, hardware-enabled solution that handles the core task of picking and placing individual items as part of a wide range of workflows and processes. With RightPick, businesses can reduce the cost of order fulfillment in electronics, apparel, grocery, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries. RHR was founded in 2014 by a DARPA challenge-winning team from the Harvard Biorobotics Lab, the Yale GRAB Lab, and MIT, intent on bringing grasping intelligence powered by computer vision and applied machine learning to bear on real world problems. The company is based in Somerville, Mass., outside of Boston. For more information, please visit www.righthandrobotics.com/ or follow the company @RHRobotics.
About PALTAC CORPORATION
PALTAC CORPORATION engages in the wholesale of cosmetics, daily necessities, and general pharmaceutical products in Japan. The company also provides logistics and store solutions and exports its products to Southeast Asia and internationally. The company was founded in 1898 and is headquartered in Osaka, Japan. PALTAC CORPORATION is a subsidiary of MEDIPAL HOLDINGS CORPORATION. For more information, please visit http://www.paltac.co.jp.