Ocado plans to take its IoT and mobile technology to industries outside grocery
Ocado plans to sell the technology and systems it has built for its new state of the art warehouse to other industries, such as airports or mining.
Speaking at Mobile World Congress, head of technology at Ocado's R&D department 10x Stream, David Sharp, said that once it had launched the technology in its new warehouse, Ocado would sell its internet of things system to other industries that had a need for it.
The business has built a system that allows 1000 robots to help pack grocery shopping. To enable it to happen in the smallest possible space, Ocado had to build a new type of mobile network because “wifi is too slow, it doesn't scale to 1000 robots and 5G isn't here”.
“We are going to make it available as a wireless solution. It’s the most dense mobile network in the world,” he added.
Ocado is no stranger to selling on its technology and innovation, its deal with Morrisons is now making over £200m in revenue for the latter, according to Sharp.
“We thought it would be useful to take our software and make it run in the cloud anywhere in the world. This is the Ocado Smart Platform and it is now the world’s most advanced online grocery solution. We are now adding industrial IoT design which is a radical breakthrough in automation in our warehouse. We’re on the verge of making it live in Andover,” he explained.