Einride and GE Appliances start autonomous movement of freight

The daily transport of finished goods is taking place four days a week in Selmer, Tennessee, enabling up to seven shuttles a day of autonomous operation.

The long-term deployment follows pilot projects with GE Appliances in a gated environment in 2021. This was followed by the first public road pilot in the US for a purpose built autonomous, electric truck without a driver on board.

In a statement, Henrik Green, general manager, Autonomous Technologies, Einride, said: “We are very proud to partner with GEA and be able to lead the industry in providing autonomous technology and deploying it in the strongest commercial use case today. We look forward to continuing this work to establish autonomous’ key role in transportation, both with GEA and other partners across markets.”

The Einride autonomous vehicle is part of a larger interoperability project in Selmer to create an automated logistics flow that improves employee ergonomics and safety around the loading docks and increases efficiency.

Additional GE Appliances partners include TaskWatch and Slip Robotics. TaskWatch’s AI cameras trigger a control board to raise and lower the dock doors, dock plate, lock the Einride autonomous vehicle into place and notify the Slip robot that the autonomous vehicle is ready for loading.

The Slip robot then autonomously loads and unloads the vehicle, reducing loading times by 80 per cent. Ericsson provided the private network to ensure communication between the vehicle and the remote operator on site. Tiffany Heathcott, the first remote operator hired by Einride, is onsite to monitor the vehicle. 

“Our partnership with Einride in Selmer reflects our evolved approach to robotics and automation technology,” said Harry Chase, senior director of Central Materials at GE Appliances. “We are moving from implementing one-off solutions addressing various challenges to creating interoperability among systems that can build consistency and streamline processes in our factories and throughout our supply chain.