NEDRE VATS, Norway, Nov. 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The General Services Administration (GSA) installed an automated record filing and retrieval system from robotics technology company, AutoStore, inside a recently completed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) central records complex in Winchester, Virginia. The facility includes the country’s first robotic filing and retrieval warehouse in a GSA project.
Certified by the National Archives and Records Administration, this secure, state-of-the-art, 250,000-square-foot facility was built to consolidate and contain records previously housed within 256 field offices around the world. After comparing several automation technologies in consultation with Swisslog, an AutoStore integration partner, GSA and the FBI selected the AutoStore solution for its cube storage technology to automate the filing and retrieval operation of more than 2 billion pages of official paper records. The dense AutoStore system eliminates the need for aisle space and uses all available areas for filing documents. Within the cube, 140 fast and reliable radio-controlled robots maneuver through an overhead steel grid system 16 levels deep, to identify and retrieve requested items from any of 360,000 filing bins.
“It is a privilege and honor to know our innovative warehouse automation technology serves U.S. government agencies,” said Karl Johan Lier, CEO of AutoStore. “With the agility, efficiency and accuracy of AutoStore robots operating within our elegantly sophisticated high-density grid, the FBI will be able to carry out their mission with greater effectiveness and maintain its leadership in vital information management.”
The AutoStore solution will help streamline the file request process. With the automated system, the Bureau will save time in finding and retrieving files, allowing staff to focus on more high-value work. Its software tracks both record and bin numbers, allowing the robots to work securely without the system supplier having any access to the records themselves. Placed away into darkened, climate-controlled bins, paper records are also safe from environmental elements.
Additionally, the filing density of the system will greatly reduce the footprint required to house files in the facility or other FBI offices, saving money on rent and freeing up valuable space for other mission needs. Built for nearly 500 employees, the Virginia complex opened earlier this year and will be fully operational by 2022.
For further information, please contact:
Karl Johan Lier, CEO, +47 907 95 334
Suzanne Delap, Marketing Content Manager, +1 603 404 3479
About AutoStore | www.autostoresystem.com
AutoStore, founded in 1996, is a robotics technology company that invented, and continues to pioneer, Cube Storage Automation – the densest and one of the fastest order-fulfillment solutions in existence. The company’s focus is to marry software and hardware with human abilities to create the future of order fulfillment. AutoStore is global, with more than 500 systems installed in 30 countries over a wide range of industries. All systems are designed, installed and serviced by a network of qualified system integrators – which AutoStore calls ‘partners’. The company’s headquarters is in Nedre Vats (Norway), with offices also in Oslo (Norway), in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Japan and South Korea.
A video accompanying this announcement is available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6ce2e88c-9871-4527-98cd-6245a67b2125