Category Archives: Automation

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Its no secret that the pandemic has radically altered the ways in which consumers shop, forcing brands to rethink how they can deliver a superior customer experience when sales are largely shifting to ecommerce. Across industries, retailers continue to experience increased demand through their online channelsa demand thats expected to become the new norm.

PwCs 2020 Global Consumer Insights Survey found that 86% of surveyed consumers intend to continue shopping online and by phone even once social distancing measures are removed.

Despite shopping in-store less and less, consumers maintain high expectations for the retailers they buy from. As they head into the new year, brands have the option of either evolving their online offerings in stride with consumers changing preferences or falling behind the competition.

The shift to online shopping may present some initial stumbling blocks to retail operations, but there are solutions for staying efficient, such as investing in automation and AI.

Automation technologies can help brands compensate for the in-person experience and effectively inspire greater customer loyalty than their digital channels had been able to achieve in the past.

Not only will the customer experience improve, but also that of employees who are hustling to keep up with influxes of customers ecommerce orders and service inquiries. When incorporated into retail operations, automation technologies deliver the following benefits to brands as they navigate the changing retail landscape for 2021 and beyond.

In the absence of in-store associates for consumers to discuss purchasing decisions with or talk through returns, retailers can expect the demand on call centers to be high, which can lead to long wait times that risk turning shoppers away if a representative is expected to be available for every request.

To avoid this risk, retailers can deploy an automation program equipped with chatbot technologies to field inbounds. Such technologies are capable of handling straightforward tasks like producing a return label based on a customers order information without the need for human intervention, and they can recognize when a situation needs to be elevated to employees.

With technology able to discern which scenarios warrant employees attention, customers receive attentive representatives who can resolve their issues sooner.

Deploying automation software to fulfill certain requests can also earn favor from customers; according to Windstream Enterprise, 68% of surveyed customers are more likely to shop at a retailer that offers automated returns versus ones that dont.

Should an issue be elevated to a human representative, automation can still support the interaction to facilitate productivity. Based on the initial information fielded by the chatbot, automation software can create prompts for the employee to guide and expedite the conversation.

Then, to cut down on call time further, automation can work in the background to pull relevant customer information for the retail employee so that time isnt wasted searching through files, giving both the customer and employee time back in their day to focus on other matters.

As customers shift their shopping to digital platforms, retailers need to ensure they have the internal tools in place for accommodating increased demand through those channels.

As orders flood in online, employees in fulfillment centers are tasked with processing accompanying influxes in paperwork, like invoice drafting and return processing, which can quickly become overwhelming. This is the exact type of process that automation can help with.

Capable of streamlining tedious processes such as fielding inbound inquiries and managing customer data, automation enables retail workers to work more productively in their roles.

For example, bots can work alongside employees to automatically input relevant customer information into an invoice, so that employees dont need to fill out the forms manually.

By ensuring customer requests are handled in an organized, efficient manner, automating back-office retail processes also prevents employee burnouta pressing issue given that, in a recent Monster survey, 69% of employees reported experiencing burnout symptoms (e.g., exhaustion, anxiety) while working from home.

Automation frees employees of tedious tasks so they can focus on the more strategic, creative, and customer-facing activities that keep individuals satisfied in their roles.

Especially while employees are away from traditional office resources, automated assistants can make it easier for employees to uphold standards of excellence despite disruption as their workloads will become more manageable.

With shopping largely online nowadays, brands have increased opportunity for collecting and actioning customer insights. With this data, retailers can finetune the online experience to accommodate consumers apparent preferences.

Automation and AI can be programed to comb through consumer feedback and identify common concerns, or those with demands that necessitate employee attention.

For example, with the right AI-enabled automation program in place, retailers will receive a notification from their platform to inform them of several customer issues regarding a specific product.

Using this data, the retailer can proactively address the issue before it becomes a larger customer service problemthus driving loyalty and preventing brand erosion. This setup enables retailers to keep a pulse on customers and prospects attitudes of the brand without dedicating hours of employees time to the task.

Instead, employees will have the time to leverage those insights to fuel loyalty programs and personalization strategies.

As the shopping experience continues to remain predominantly online, retailers run the risk of becoming overwhelmed with meeting shoppers evolving demands.

However, with the right solutionssuch as a combination of automation, chatbots, and AIto support day-to-day operations, brands can remain agile and profitable in fluctuating retail landscapes, dedicating their energy and resources towards responding quickly and strategically to market changes instead of tedious tasks that only slow them down.

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How automation can enhance the retail experience in 2021 and beyond - ClickZ

Despite the obvious disruptions caused by COVID-19, the future for manufacturing looks bright. According to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) third quarter 2020 outlook survey, 66 per cent of manufacturer respondents are positive about their companys outlook over this year, with increases expected in sales, employment, production growth rate and wages. Here, Claudia Jarrett, country manager at industrial parts supplier, EU Automation, analyses how automation will make 2021 a very fruitful year.

The NAM report, which is revised each quarter to reflect the historical data, states demand and business disruptions the manufacturing sector faced in early 2020. For instance, real GDP fell dramatically by an annualized 31.7 per cent in the second quarter, the largest quarterly decline in the history of the series, dating back as far as 1947.

However, the latest Manufacturing Institute for Supply Managements (ISM) Report on Business, reveals that economic activity in the manufacturing sector grew significantly in October 2020. In fact, the overall economy saw a sixth consecutive month of growth, which is Americas strongest manufacturing growth in two years.

Displaying a willingness to adapt and a degree of resilience, manufacturers are implementing strategies which might turn into the winning formula for a successful 2021. So, lets see how this could be the case.

Advanced robotics

Many manufacturing plants have found themselves with emptied premises, due to shutdowns or to the necessity to stagger shifts or move part of their workforce to remote working. Plants, however, required the usual amount of upkeep and extra services, such as daily deep cleaning and extra maintenance for equipment pushed to its limit to meet spikes in demand or make up for lost productivity.

To do this while reducing on-site personnel, companies have increasingly turned to robots, with the consequence that stock prices for advanced robotics soared in 2020.

As a result, a study from theMPI Group reveals that 34 per cent of manufacturers have plans to incorporate internet of things (IoT) technology into their processes, while 32 per cent plan to embed IoT technology into their products. Therefore, this trend will likely continue in 2021, with companies purchasing advanced robots to automate routine tasks and comply to social distancing regulations.

Reliable supply chains

Remember the days when toilet paper and hand sanitizer were luxuries? During lockdown, people worldwide have experienced first-hand the consequences of complex supply chains that heavily rely on one geographical area.

To prevent this from happening again, manufacturers must seek to eliminate single-source dependencies by diversifying their supply chains in 2021. We will witness a shift from global to regional sourcing, with manufacturers sourcing raw materials closer to home and producing components, which were traditionally outsourced for manufacturing, in-house.

In addition, companies will also need to invest in inventory management solutions that provide visibility across all nodes of their supply chains, beyond their tier-one suppliers. In this way, manufacturers will be able to react quickly if one node is unable to fulfil an order.

This is where establishing a relationship with a reliable parts supplier is essential. Industrial automation parts suppliers, like EU Automation, deliver parts in quick turnaround, ensuring replacements can be sourced timely to prevent downtime and maintain supply chain stability.

Producing sustainably

Lockdown gave nature a chance to reclaim its spaces footage of wild animals cruising town centers undisturbed made headlines.

Next year, pressure from consumers and governments will push manufacturers to intensify their efforts to produce sustainably. Recent HIS Markit research shows that the pandemic has reinforced existing policies to decarbonize industry, with Canada, the European Union, the UK and China leading the way. In fact, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. renewable energy consumption has surpassed coal for the first time in over 130 years, meaning that sustainability will continue be at the core of investors agendas.

Now, an increasing number of global corporations are also advocating for sustainability. Apple, for example, announced in July 2020 that it is expecting to make all its supply chains and products carbon neutral by 2030. It is expected a growing number of companies will follow suit and launch similar initiatives in 2021.

Despite last years disruptions, manufacturings future looks bright. For those considering investing in automation technologies, rest assured as EU Automation has stood by manufacturers side during the most challenging moments of the pandemic and will continue to do so in the year of resurgence.

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A brighter future? Automation trends of 2021 | RoboticsTomorrow - Robotics Tomorrow

CHICAGO, Jan. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Industrial Automation Oil & Gas Market With COVID-19 Impact, By Component (Control Valves, HMI, Process Analyzers, Intelligent Pigging, Vibration Monitoring), Solutions (SCADA, PLC, DCS, MES, PAM), Stream and Region - Global Forecast to 2025", published by MarketsandMarkets, the Industrial Automation Oil & Gas Market is projected to grow from USD 14.9 billion in 2020 to USD 18.7 billion by 2025; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.7% from 2020 to 2025. The key factors fueling the growth of the market IIoT adding value in the industrial automation and optimum and effective exploration of aging reservoirs.

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The field instruments to hold the largest size of the components in industrial automation oil & gas market by 2025.

Field instruments market is expected to hold the largest share during the forecast period. Field instruments comprise four types of transmitterspressure, temperature, level, and vibration level switch, which are used for various processes involved in instrumentation. Pressure transmitters are extensively used in the oil and gas sector for the measurement of flow, level, pressure, density, and viscosity, among which flow measurement is the most common application area. Field instruments' ability to adapt to IoT and field parameter analysis propels the market in industrial automation for oil & gas market.

The DCS is projected to account for the largest size of the solutions in industrial automation oil & gas market by 2025.

The oil & gas sector is a major application area for solutions such as PLC, SCADA, DCS, and safety automation; however, the declining prices of oil and reducing oil & gas projects are expected to lead to the steady growth of these markets. Due to the geographically dispersed oil & gas platforms, it is important to have proper communication systems. This growth is attributed to the huge development of industries in India and China. This factor is expected to create a huge demand for automation products that include DCS systems.

Browsein-depth TOC on"Industrial Automation Oil & Gas Market"

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APAC projected to be the largest market for a industrial automation oil & gas from 2020 to 2025.

The growth of this market is driven by the flourishing manufacturing industry with continuously changing trends and ongoing advancements in automation technologies. Companies seek improved industrial automation oil & gas and solutions for predictive alerts, as well as for analyzing their systems to reduce overall operational and maintenance costs. In APAC, the deployment of industrial automation oil & gas components and solutions is expected to increase rapidly during the forecast period in China, India, and Malaysia.

The key players operating in the industrial automation oil & gas market include ABB Ltd. (Switzerland), Endress+Hauser AG (Switzerland), Emerson Electric Co. (US), General Electric (US), Rockwell Automation, Inc. (US), Schneider Electric SE (France), Siemens AG (Germany), Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Japan), Honeywell International Inc. (US), and Yokogawa Electric Corp. (Japan).

Related Reports:

Industrial Control and Factory Automation Marketby Solution (SCADA, PLC, DCS, MES, PLM, PAM, Functional Safety), Component (Industrial Robots, Industrial 3D Printing, Control Valves, Machine Vision, HMI), Industry, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2025

COVID-19 Impact on Smart Manufacturing Marketby Enabling Technology (Condition Monitoring, Artificial Intelligence, IIoT, Digital Twin, Industrial 3D Printing), Information Technology (WMS, MES, PAM, HMI), Industry, and Region - Global Forecast to 2025

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Industrial Automation Oil & Gas Market worth $18.7 billion by 2025 - Exclusive Report by MarketsandMarkets - PRNewswire

Geek+, a leader in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and warehouse automation, and Universal Logic, a pioneer of an AI/sensor/machine-control software brain for robots, announce the beginning of a new partnership. Together, the two technology leaders declare a joint commitment to support the manufacturing and logistics industry with a goods-to-robot solution, for automating supply chain operations.

With large parts of the supply chain dependent on fixed automation and manual materials handling, the rise in demand for customization and made-to-stock capabilities have resulted in strained processes. In turn, it has generated a need for technologies that can automate the flexibility and precision of skilled labor and combine it with the throughput capacity of dynamic inventory control, the vendors stated.

Randy Randolph, Senior Sales Manager of Geek+ US, says: We are very glad to partner with Universal Logic and look forward to leveraging their extensive experience in automating dynamic robot behavior to realize the full potential of our intelligent mobile robotics solutions. By combining our advanced robotics hardware with Universal Logics unparalleled experience, we believe that this collaboration has the potential to transform the global supply chain and shape the future.

The partnership will give Universal Logic access to Geek+s wide range of robotics hardware for intelligent sorting and picking. Built on autonomous mobile robot technology and AI-driven software, Geek+ will provide Universal Logic with the flexibility to automate the entire chain from dynamic inventory control to pick & pack, expanding from goods-to-man to goods-to-robot solutions. Correspondingly, Geek+ will have access to Neocortex, Universal Logics AI platform featuring real-time and modular robot control for extended perception, direct grasping, and advanced robot guidance, enabling human-like flexible picking capabilities, to unleash the true potential of intelligent robotics for logistics.

Universal Logic CEO, David Peters, states: The Geek+ mobile robot platform, dovetails perfectly with Universals dynamic robot control for picking and packing, providing our customers seamless automation capabilities, creating an end-to-end solution to meet current and future supply chain needs.

Today, Geek+ and Universal Logic respectively serves a broad customer range including Fortune 500 Companies and regional businesses. The collaboration will enable them to strengthen their industry leadership and provide clients with flexible, adaptable, and efficient operations that can meet challenges associated with high mix/high volume applications in manufacturing, wholesale, and retail.

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Geek+ and Universal Logic team up on goods to robot automation - Modern Materials Handling

Walmart is expanding a test with automated truck startup Gatik and will remove safety drivers for fully autonomous, human-free deliveries.

Gatiks autonomous trucks will be heading to Louisiana for an expansion to a second market with Walmart. The partnership began last year with a pilot in the Walmart home base of Bentonville, Arkansas. Since it began, Gatik trucks have driven more than 70,000 miles autonomously, but with a safety driver for any potential hiccups. The trucks have ferried goods from a Walmart dark store to one of the companys small-format locations known as neighborhood markets.

Gatik will do largely the same thing in the Louisiana market, but the big news is removing safety drivers.

In 2021, we will be removing the safety driver from our vehicles and undertaking driverless deliveries with Walmart on this route in Arkansas, as well as expanding our operation with Walmart to a second locationLouisiana, wrote CEO and co-founder Gautam Narang. This achievement marks an historic technological and regulatory milestone for the industry, signifying the first ever driverless operation carried out for the supply chains middle mile.

Thats a key area of innovation for companies like Walmart or other major retail outlets. Getting things from a dark store, i.e., a distribution center, to a satellite location efficiently is always important but not typically a full-time job. The middle mile at Walmart, for instance, requires customers to make same- or next-day orders for pickup at those satellite locations.

If there are no orders, theres no need for a driver, but if there are lots of orders, it could require a lot of trips and multiple drivers. That variability means automating the process can unlock a lot of value.

With a drastic rise in e-commerce, driven by rapidly evolving consumer needs and compounded by driver shortages, the middle mile has been a thorn in the side of major retailers, and one which can only be solved with automation, wrote Narang. Driverless operations will enable our customers to realize the full potential of autonomous delivery: significant cost savings which can be passed onto the consumer, a high-functioning hub-and-spoke distribution model and short delivery times which keep consumers satisfied.

According to Walmart, the next phase of the test will automate a 20-mile route between New Orleans and Metairie, Louisiana. At the outset, the new route will include a safety driver.

Those fixed routes are essential to go from a pilot to fully autonomous in two years. The company was able to fully automate the process because unlike other startups that promise to make scores of deliveries to consumers, Gatik trucks make the same trip over and over and over. That must be exceptionally dull for the safety driver, but its also exceptionally safe for everyone else.

Its an approach we refer to as structured autonomy. Its safe and efficient because it enables us to constrain the challenge of autonomy, thereby heavily over-optimizing our delivery routes and minimizing edge-cases, wrote Narang.

The expansion is not exactly sexy for the consumers, but this model has a lot of promise for all sorts of restaurants and retailers. As more and more retailers shed square footage, storage gets very difficult. Re-stocking a kiosk or small-format operation multiple times a day from a low-cost warehouse or distribution center makes a lot more sense when the deliveries drive themselves.

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Walmart Promises Fully Automated 'Middle Mile' Operation This Year - Food On Demand News

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The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) has launched a multi-year research effort officials said is designed to automate broad-area search of multi-source satellite imagery.

The Space-based Machine Automated Recognition Technique (SMART) program detects, monitors, and characterizes the progression of dynamic processes that include heavy construction or crop growth.

Current manual exploitation methods do not scale well with the data volumes were receiving, and theres the problem of simultaneously analyzing data from past, current, and future space-based systems, IARPA Program Manager Jack Cooper said. SMART innovations in data fusion and machine learning techniques will enable automated broad area search at unprecedented temporal resolution and area coverage.

Authorities indicated by augmenting the manual imagery analysis process with global-scale image processing and machine learning, SMART would provide timely discovery and robust monitoring of man-made and natural change.

IARPA has awarded SMART research contracts to teams led by Accenture Federal Services, Kitware, BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, and Systems & Technology Research.

IARPA invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs to address some of the intelligence communitys most difficult challenges.

The four research thrusts within IARPA are Analysis, which seeks to maximize insight from information collected in a timely fashion; Anticipatory Intelligence the development of technologies providing decision-makers with timely and accurate forecasts for a range of events relevant to national security; Collection striving to improve the value of collected data from all sources dramatically; and Computing, which endeavors to counter new capabilities implemented by adversaries that could threaten the ability to operate freely and effectively in a networked world.

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IARPA initiative aids satellite imagery automation - Homeland Preparedness News

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The factory automation platform as a service market is expected to grow by USD 2.92 billion, progressing at a CAGR of over 20% during the forecast period.

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The ease of IT and OT convergence is one of the major factors propelling market growth. However, factors such as data privacy and security concerns will hamper the market growth.

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Factory Automation Platform as a Service Market: Geographic Landscape

The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. North America will offer several growth opportunities to market vendors during the forecast period. The increasing focus on edge computing, increasing number of strategic collaborations, and virtualization of industrial automation will significantly influence factory automation platform as a service market's growth in this region. 37% of the markets growth will originate from North America during the forecast period. The US is the key market for the factory automation platform as a service in North America. This report provides an accurate prediction of the contribution of all segments to the growth of the factory automation platform as a service market size.

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Industrial Automation Control Market by Product, End user, and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2020-2024: The industrial automation control market size has the potential to grow by USD 25.18 billion during 2020-2024, and the markets growth momentum will accelerate during the forecast period. To get extensive research insights: Click and Get FREE Sample Report in Minutes!

Automated Industrial Quality Control Market by End-user, Solution, and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2020-2024: The automated industrial quality control market size has the potential to grow by USD 220.87 million during 2020-2024, and the markets growth momentum will accelerate during the forecast period. To get extensive research insights: Click and Get FREE Sample Report in Minutes!

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Insights on the Global Factory Automation Platform As A Service Market 2020-2024: COVID-19 Analysis, Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities, and Threats -...

Member Article

Automated invoice processing offers touchless processing and regulatory compliance, leads to incredible strategic results and skyrockets your growth potential. 80% of C-suite executives believe that automated invoice processing gives them a competitive advantage. This confidence in invoice automation comes from proven benefits like reduced cycle times and increased process visibility.

Invoice automation reduces processing costs by almost 29% - Association for Image & Information Management

Your tried and tested manual invoicing error-prone, outdated, chaos-causing and results in ineffective accounting mechanisms and minuscule improvements. But, equipping your accounts payable team with power of automation can help you smartly address these issues. Technically, automated invoicing or e-invoicing uses robotic process automation (RPA) to facilitate seamless data extraction, accurate data entry and storage. In a few clicks, the payment process can be completed securely with a way-high accuracy. The need for redundant checks is eliminated, which greatly optimizes time and cost.

While we take a deeper dive into why e-invoicing is essential to boost your operational performance and improve your credibility, first lets have a quick look at some of the difficult-to-handle manual invoicing challenges.

Automation-enablement comes with multiple value-added propositions and is a key to success when it comes to re-engineering invoice processing.

Accounts payable automation saves an estimated average of 16 dollars per invoice. - Business Finance magazine

Here are some cost-justifying and convincing reasons in detail explaining why invoice automation is crucial:

Manual invoice processing proves cost-intensive with expenses incurred towards employee payments and bulk paper requirements. Implementing automation throughout the processes gives a way to a truly streamlined invoice processing journey:

One of Canadas largest retailers - having 200 vendors and regularly required to handle 120+ hundred invoices - optimized its invoice processing by implementing automation. Apart from witnessing streamlined document classification and invoice filling, it experienced a remarkable 95% of improvement in invoice data entry.

As one of the key components for providing evidence of tax and payment compliances, invoice is the most important asset to ensuring audit success. Automation leaves no scope for invoice mismanagement and helps chart a growth journey to acquiring certifications, achieving better rankings and getting industry recognized credentials.

e-invoicing optimizes tax compliance costs by around 37-39% - Billentis

More vendors associated to your business mean more periodical invoices that must be processed accurately to prevent loss of trust amongst your business partners. Heres how automation works as a relationship improving agent.

Electronic invoicing could prevent late payment in as much as 39% of invoices and prevent worsening of vendor relationships. - Tungsten Network & the Institute of Finance & Management

Fraud monitoring, detection and prevention are essential to ensuring successful financial operations. Ever mounting invoice data, stringent payment deadlines, and the onus of maintaining long-term relationships with vendors creates pressure on staff, who can easily commit errors, with intentional manipulations for personal benefits not to be ignored. Automated mechanisms come with answers to these issues, as they:

Invoices are a direct input to budget - the most time-consuming activity in any business. This is because they give access to amounts of funds that were disbursed during a given financial cycle. As against manual approaches, automated procedures streamline forecasting of budgetary allocations. Lets see how invoice automation scripts successful budget management:

48% of businesses consider handling exceptions as the top accounts payable problem. - 2015 Ardent Partners Business Survey

Invoice exception handling is one challenging task that demands separate attention from accounts department in a non-automated process. Billentis suggests that in manual invoicing 20-30% of invoices are treated for exceptions. Offering accountants rescue from these inconsistencies, automation yields benefits for the organization by leveraging leaner and better exception handling workflows. This is facilitated as:

Digital invoice management services are fast emerging. They offer exceptional auto-exception resolution work-flows and deploy machine learning algorithms to ensure 100% straight through processing and invoice-PO matching.

Scrambling with invoices in manual processing can leave your accountants tired; and not only entire operational productivity is hampered but their expected involvement in strategic initiatives doesnt become possible. Automation helps achieve the basic aim of optimization, and the saved time and efforts can be devoted to core progressions. Here are more insights.

IOFMs 2018 Future of Accounts Payable Study survey showed that 51% of accounts payable practitioners believe that they will adopt automation in invoice processing by 2021. So, not taking the advantage of robotic process automation (RPA) now means you are keeping yourself in the backseat in the competition.

Digital transformation in invoice processing is no longer a lucrative option rather it has become an imperative. Capitalizing on technological resources through e-invoicing can allow you gain sustainable competitive advantage and help best manage fast changing stakeholder expectations.

When faced with a lack of technical resources for automating accounting cycles, search for and engage with a qualified outsourcing provider. Professional invoice processing service providers are experts in context-based implementations and allow fullest exploitation of artificial intelligence (AI) powered technologies.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Hi-Tech BPO .

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Why automating invoice processing is a smart move - Bdaily

HOLON, Israel, Jan. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Sapiens International Corporation, (NASDAQ: SPNS)(TASE: SPNS), a leading global provider of software solutions for the insurance industry, announced today that it has been selected to automate and operate Altshuler Shaham's provident and pension funds for the next three years. Altshuler Shaham, Israel's largest investment house and fastest growing provident and pension funds, reported massive growth in both assets and number of members during the first 3 quarters of 2020.

As part of its strategic decision to enter the operations sector, Sapiens recently acquired Tiful Gemel company and its activities, which include the management and operation of provident and pension funds. Altshuler Shaham can now benefit from Sapiens' significant presence and extensive experience in the field of life insurance, long-term savings and pensions, both in Israel and globally. Together with Tiful Gemel, Sapiens provides added value to ensure Altshuler Shaham's continued growth. Tiful Gemel is an Israeli company immaterial to Sapiens' revenue or profits.

Despite the COVID-19crisis, Altshuler Shaham continued to grow in 2020, showing an increase of approximately 112 percent in the number of pension fund members in the third quarter compared to a corresponding quarter last year. The company's pension fund assets under management also grew by 98 percent of the total of NIS 7.3 billion on November 30, 2019 to a total of NIS 15.73 billion as of November 30, 2020, making Altshuler Shaham's pension fund the largest among the investment houses in Israel

Yair Lowenstein, CEO of Altshuler Shaham: "This agreement constitutes another leap forward for our pension fund and continues to establish our status as a leading player in the industry. In recent years we took a series of steps to prepare for significant growth. This service agreement with Sapiens is yet another milestone for us. Sapiens' professionalism and expertise in the field of pensions in Israel and the international arena are unique. We look forward tothe start of this fruitful relationship."

Roni Al-Dor, CEO of Sapiens:"We are pleased and excited about this vote of confidence from the management of Altshuler Shaham. Sapiens knowledge and professionalism, in addition to our considerable experience in the local market, and our partnership with Tiful Gemel and its managers, will enable us to contribute significantly to the further growth of Altshuler Shaham's provident and pension fund."

About Sapiens

Sapiens International Corporation empowers insurers to succeed in an evolving industry. The company offers digital software platforms, solutions and services for the property and casualty, life, pension and annuity, reinsurance,financial and compliance, workers' compensation and financialmarkets. With more than 35 years of experience delivering to nearly 600 organizations globally, Sapiens has a proven ability to satisfy customers' core, data and digital requirements. For more information:www.sapiens.com.

Media ContactAlex ZukermanCMO and Chief of Strategy, Sapiens+972 546 724 910 [emailprotected]

SOURCE Sapiens International Corporation

https://www.sapiens.com/

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Altshuler Shaham Selects Sapiens for the Operation and Automation of its Provident and Pension Funds - PRNewswire

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Seegrid Corporation, the leader in autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for material handling, today announced it doubled revenue year-over-year for the second year in a row. Seegrids growth reflects increased demand from manufacturing, e-commerce, and logistics companies for automation solutions to address rising pressures on the supply chain, which were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and ever-evolving consumer demands.

The incredible growth we recorded last year is a testament to our collective ability to adapt to changing environments -- something that our customers can uniquely do when using our automation solutions, said Jim Rock, Seegrids Chief Executive Officer. Supply chain disruption surfaced in many different ways in 2020, but our ability to help our customers move materials safely around the world is a constant.

Driven by changing consumer behavior and needs, the typical, seasonal spikes that manufacturing and distribution centers plan for were replaced by a continuous demand surge that caused a ripple effect across the supply chain. Seegrids enterprise software and AMRs helped manufacturing, e-commerce, and logistics companies keep up, increasing its production fleet from three to four million autonomous miles driven at customer sites from March 2020 through September 2020.

Because end users can make changes while production is running -- our customers are able to accelerate the implementation and adoption of Seegrids mobile robots and software solutions, a critical need in todays world, said Rock. Our customers are under pressure to increase capacity and quickly adapt workflows to evolving demand, and do so safely.

Seegrid holds the industry-setting standard for autonomous miles driven, all without a single personnel safety incident. The safety, flexibility, and reliability of Seegrid solutions helped the company close a $52M financing round in September, which supported the companys acquisition of Box Robotics.

We are especially pleased to have added Boxs co-founders Tom Panzarella and John Spletzer to the Seegrid team, said Rock.

The company expects similar growth in 2021 through the advancement of next-generation perception and enhanced human-like, situational awareness technology for the companys AMR fleet. Seegrid has also been steadily adding headcount, placing priority on maximizing the value for its customers, ensuring high levels of adoption, customer satisfaction, and continuous improvement.

Every day, our teams are helping transform material flow and creating higher levels of productivity for global manufacturing and distribution companies, said Rock. Im excited to build on our success and the success of our customers this year.

About Seegrid

Seegrid combines autonomous mobile robots, fleet management software, and actionable analytics for a complete, connected, material handling solution. Seegrid Vision navigation technology is reliable, flexible, and proven with millions of autonomous production miles driven and zero personnel safety incidents. Manufacturing, warehousing and logistics companies around the world leverage Seegrid smart automation solutions. With Seegrids best-in-class service and support that extends from project design through deployment and training, material flow is both safe and optimized, accelerating Industry 4.0 initiatives today and into the future. http://www.seegrid.com

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Seegrid Doubles Revenues, Sees Record Adoption of Material Handling Automation Solutions - Business Wire