You order a phone case on an app at ten at night. By morning, it has been found on a shelf in a warehouse near Bhiwandi, packed, and put on a truck. Most of that night's work was directed by software, and some of it was done by robots.
A modern warehouse runs on three things:
- the warehouse management system (WMS), which knows where every item is, and tells each worker what to pick next
- the order management system (OMS), which decides which warehouse fills which order
- the robots, which bring shelves to the people who pick the items, carry pallets and sort parcels. A pallet is the flat wooden platform that goods are stacked on, so a forklift can move them.
One phone case overnight: the order management system picks the warehouse, the warehouse management system knows the shelf and directs the picker, a robot brings the shelf, and the parcel is packed, sorted and on a truck by morning.
The warehouse holds the stock that the plan in Market Segment 30.1, Supply chain planning software, decided on.
India has become a centre for warehouse robotics. There are several start-ups in Bengaluru, and one of the leading robotics companies was founded in Gurugram.
Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.
This Market Segment has two sub-segments. The first covers the warehouse's software. The second covers the robots.
The warehouse's software
Warehouse and order management systems, filling orders from every sales channel, mobile apps for warehouse staff, and marketplaces for warehouse space
Back to the phone case from the start of this Market Segment. Before anyone touched it, software decided which warehouse would send it, and where on the shelves it was.
Two companies sell these systems to large companies:
Infioswith engineers in Bengaluru and Hyderabad, sells warehouse and order management. It is the supply-chain software business that was formerly part of Körber.
Manhattan Associateswith engineers in Bengaluru, sells the warehouse, transport and order-management systems of many of the world's largest retailers and distributors.
Two companies sell to online sellers, who often sell on their own website, on several marketplaces and in stores at once. Filling all those orders from one stock is called omnichannel fulfilment.
Unicommercewith engineers in Delhi, sells order and warehouse management to online sellers in India. (More on the software behind an online store in Market Segment 27.1, E-commerce storefront, checkout and search tools, in Industry Vertical 27, Retail tech.)
Anchantowith engineers in Pune, sells the same to online sellers in South-East Asia.
The rest of this sub-segment covers narrower jobs:
Pivotreesells a warehouse system as a service: a subscription, run for the customer.
Tecsys Inc.sells the warehouse and hospital-pharmacy stock systems of hospital groups.
RFgen Softwarewith engineers in Hyderabad, sells the mobile apps with which warehouse staff scan and move stock.
Cargoz.comwith engineers in Bengaluru, runs a marketplace for warehouse space. That is why it also appears in Market Segment 41.5, Coworking and co-living spaces (in Industry Vertical 41, Proptech).
noonwith engineers in Delhi, runs its own warehouses. It is covered mainly in Market Segment 26.1, Online marketplaces (in Industry Vertical 26, E-commerce and D2C brands).
The robots
Robots that bring goods to the picker, mobile robots that move by themselves, automated storage, sorting machines and robotic picking
Back to the warehouse at night. Instead of a person walking the aisles to find the phone case, a robot may bring the whole shelf to the person. This is called goods-to-person.
Person to goods and goods to person: in the old way the picker walks the aisles to find each item; with goods-to-person robots, the whole shelf is brought to a picker who stays in place.
GreyOrangefounded in Gurugram, with engineers in Delhi and Bengaluru, has the most job postings in this Market Segment. It makes goods-to-person robots. It also makes the software that directs robots and people across a whole warehouse. It sells to retailers and logistics companies around the world.
Rapyuta Roboticswith engineers in Chennai, makes robots for automated storage and robots that help people pick. They run on its cloud robotics platform, which controls the robots over the internet.
Bastian Solutionswith engineers in Bengaluru, designs and installs automated material handling: the conveyors, storage machines and robots that move goods through a building.
Start-ups in Bengaluru make the rest:
Botsync, Ati Motors and ANSCER Roboticsmake autonomous mobile robots, which move goods and pallets around factories and warehouses by themselves. Botsync and Ati Motors also appear in Market Segment 37.5, Industrial machinery and robotics (in Industry Vertical 37, Manufacturing tech).
Accio Robotics and Cartesian Kineticsmake goods-to-person robots.
Mowitomakes vision software for robotic arms, so that the arm can see what it is picking up.
Wayzim Technologymakes sorting systems, which send each parcel to the right lane, and automated storage.
One more company is the Indian arm of a large group:
KION Indiawith engineers in Pune, is the Indian arm of KION, the forklift and warehouse-automation group.
The warehouse that picks itself.
Robots have taken over moving goods to people. Picking is the last step still done by hand: a person choosing one item from a bin. AI vision models let a robotic arm pick items it has never seen before, and they are closing that gap. India, with its quick-commerce dark stores and its crop of robotics start-ups, is both building and testing the change. (More on dark stores in Market Segment 28.1, Food and grocery delivery apps, in Industry Vertical 28, Foodtech and quick commerce.)
That is the warehouse: software that knows where everything is, and robots that do more of the moving. Next, the goods leave on a truck. (More on it in Market Segment 30.3, Transportation management (TMS) and digital freight marketplaces.)