Lear's automated seat plant, P&G warehouse planning in 20 minutes, Tutor raises $75M
Lear builds an automated Michigan plant as its template, P&G cuts shift planning from eight hours to 20 minutes, and Tutor Intelligence raises $75M.
Factory floor
Lear to open automated Michigan seat plant as blueprint for its global network
Lear CEO Raymond Scott said on an earnings call that the Orion, Michigan facility, due to start operation next year, will serve as the blueprint for automation across the company. Scott said the automation is expected to reduce conversion cost requirements by 10% to 15%. The site includes two automated storage and retrieval systems, autonomous mobile robots and AI vision inspection.
AutoScheduler.AI says P&G cut warehouse shift planning from 8 hours to 20 minutes
According to AutoScheduler.AI CEO Keith Moore in an IIoT World interview, the platform automates about 80% of warehouse decisions and cut P&G's per-shift planning from eight hours to 20 minutes. Floor supervisors with no coding experience have built nearly 500 custom applications on it. Moore said one inventory-shortage app saved a facility $150,000 within two days.
Deals & funding
Tutor Intelligence raises $75M Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz
Tutor said total capital raised is now $117 million and the funds will go to robot foundation model training, manufacturing and deployment. The company says it sells robot work by the hour or by the pick, with no upfront purchase. It says it is in almost four times as many facilities as a year ago and is on track for more than 1,000 robots under contract by the end of 2027.
From the tracker
How this post was made: a script collects items from trade press and news searches, drops duplicates, press-release wires and stories already covered, and keeps the last 2 days. AI picks 2 or 3 and summarizes them under a fixed rulebook; a second script checks every link, number and name against the source before publishing. Full method.