Murata Machinery, Ltd (hereinafter, Muratec, Headquarters: Kyoto, Japan, CEO: Daisuke Murata) is pleased to announce that it signed an agreement on a strategic partnership with US material handling system supplier Alert Innovation, Inc. (hereinafter, Alert, Headquarters: North Billerica, MA, USA, CEO: John Lert) on July 4, 2019.

Alert, an American startup company, has developed ALPHABOT®, a unique picking solution system. As a strategic partner, Muratec will undertake a transfer of technical knowledge on the ALPHABOT® system, and will have exclusive rights to market and sell, design, manufacture, and service systems based on ALPHABOT® throughout Japan. On the other side, Alert will be able to take advantage of our resources as a global material handling solution provider to expand their business as well.

Alert’s ALPHABOT® is a robot (hereinafter, “BOT”) that can both drive horizontally and climb up and down vertically inside of a storage rack. It is able to pick up a product container from the rack, move it out of the storage rack, and reach a station where a staff member takes the product from the container. After which the BOT starts to move back to the storage rack and retrieve another product container automatically.

In recent years, a theme in the material handling market represented especially by eCommerce is for a solution that allows a high density of a wide variety of items in storage, and an efficient picking system to expedite orders from many individual customers. The ALPHABOT® system is the total solution for storage, sorting and picking. With the ability to drive throughout the entire storage system, and access every station, the BOT can easily collect specific products from any storage locations. This is the revolutionary solution - an efficient fulfillment system from order to delivery in e-Commerce.

Alert has collaborated with the major American grocery store chain Walmart since August 2016. As of August 2019, Alert has already started commissioning in 2 Walmart stores, and they have plans to expand business throughout America.

Alert is also developing the new grocery store format “NOVASTORE™”. With NOVASTORE™, customers are able to get requested products quickly and automatically by ALPHABOT® through online shopping while shopping for fresh foods and produce—a new style combining the internet shopping experience with an in-store experience.

Our strategic partnership will help expand Alert’s business opportunities.

On the other hand, Muratec is going to develop and provide new solutions for middle and large-scale delivery centers in Japan based on Alert’s ALPHABOT® technology.

Please look forward to our new service provided by Alert and Muratec’s strategic partnership.

Strategic Partnership Overview

1.Muratec receives a technology transfer related to ALPHABOT® from Alert, and develops new solutions based on the exclusive intellectual property use rights in Japan.
2.Muratec is going to start to design, manufacture, market, and service new solutions based on the ALPHABOT® system in Japan from October 1, 2019.

Expected Effect

1.This strategic partnership is the opportunity to expand our business by accelerating development towards an efficient fulfillment system from order to delivery.
2.The new solutions developed by Muratec based on strategic partnerships will contribute to the improvement of the technical perfection of ALPHABOT® and the expansion of its applications. The results can be shared between Alert and Muratec.
3.The strategic partnership with Alert will demonstrate Murata Machinery's positive attitude towards new technologies, and we can expect to gain and expand our presence in Japan as well as in North America and even globally.

About Alert Innovation