Outrider - Autonomous Link in the Distribution Supply Chain - CEO Andrew Smith

Outrider provides automates yard trucks in distribution centres. CEO, Andrew Smith, tells Auto Futures how the Colorado-based company plans to disrupt distribution, and make it safer, faster, greener, cleaner and more efficient.

Distribution yards are a major pain point in the global supply chain. When an over-the-road truck comes to pick up a trailer at a distribution yard- if they have to wander around and drive around the yard looking for it. It is super inefficient, explains Smith.

In a distribution yard, trailers come from all over the country to unload, drop off and pick up trailers. Yard trucks are a special class of vehicles that move trailers between parking spots and loading docks.

A distribution yard is a fantastic place for automation because it is confined and speed-controlled, says Smith.

"It is really magical technology that the Outrider team put together to address this one critical link in the supply chain. We fully autonomously move trailers and containers around distribution yards. Outrider has a fully autonomous system that improves the efficiency, safety and sustainability in the distribution yard," he says.

How the Outrider System Works

The autonomous system is constantly tracking the location of all the trailers in the yard and positioning those trailers to save time for the over-the-road trucks, says Smith.

Truck arrival information is fed into the Outrider System. The autonomous yard truck will grab trailers and move them closer to the gate. When the over-the-road truck drivers arrive at that gate, they are notified of the exact locations of the trailers. Then they connect to the trailers and take them off-site.

"We can dispatch multiple autonomous electric trucks to go and find semi-trailers in a distribution yard, autonomously hitch them, autonomously release the brakes with the TralierConnect robotic arm manipulation. We can move these trailers around the yard and then park them at loading docks with centimetre accuracy. It allows the people working at these facilities to focus on higher value tasks and dramatically increases the productivity of how these facilities operate and it reduces the cost," he says.

"Customers have a choice they can buy traditional manually driven trucks and then pay three to four shifts of workers to move trailers back and forth between parking spots and loading docks. Or--literally with the press of a button, you can dispatch one of our Outrider trucks to go move to hitch to a trailer, connect to the trailer and move it around the distribution yard." 

"It is a subscription service, where our customers have immediate significant cost savings on daily operations. They are enhancing the safety of their operation. And they have better visibility of their assets and tracked locations," adds Smith.

Outrider Integrates into Yard Operations

He says because Outrider-propelled trucks are confined to private property environments, Outrider can integrate into ongoing operations as opposed to creating new ones. Outrider offers remote support and works with customers to ensure autonomous systems can integrate side-by-side with manual human operations in the yard environment.

The Outrider System can stop a vehicle when it sees something unusual and call for help, as opposed to an over-the-road autonomous taxi that would block traffic, for example, says Smith.

Automated systems management systems already in place at facilities can request through a simple API software connection to dispatch one of the Outrider trucks.

"Our customers are Fortune 500 enterprises that have networks of distribution yards. We deploy the autonomous system and are the link between over-the-road transportation and warehouse operations. We drive efficiency, safety and sustainability within those yard operations. Everything we do is connected through software--from the information of the truck operators to the people inside the warehouse." 

In January, Outrider announced it closed $73 million in Series C financing led by FM Capital.

"Publicly, we have only talked about our collaboration with Georgia Pacific. But Outrider has implemented multi-million-dollar pilots with several different Fortune 500 companies. With the current funding, we're completing the final hardening of the system to scale with these priority customers," he says.

Orange is the New Autonomous Green

The Outrider System is designed to work only with electric vehicles.

"One of our core missions is accelerating zero-emission transportation technology. We deliver to our customers who desire to rapidly transition to zero-emission platforms in parallel with autonomy. Once you have seen an electric vehicle---it is just crazy that they are not all electric at this point," says Smith.

Outrider announced a partnership with Orange EV yard trucks to outfit them with the Outrider System.

Part of Outrider's autonomous capability is that it highlights the benefits of electric vehicles. It enables electric vehicles, monitors use and autonomously sends vehicles back to charge, he says and predicts that in the future the charging will be automated.

"We can partner with robotic plug-in technologies with inductive charging technologies. So that charging becomes a non-issue," says Smith.

He sums up Outrider this way, "We have seen a massive amount of digitization in the supply chain. But, as we go to automation, you want to combine automation with sustainability to create the supply chain that the general public wants."