Brightpick to outline the path to lights-out warehouses at Robotics Summit

Brightpick will outline a practical roadmap for achieving 'lights-out' warehouse operations at the Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston on May 27–28. Co-founder and CEO Jan Zizka, a robotics and AI expert with over 20 patents, will argue that full automation remains incremental, with hybrid models—where robots handle repetitive tasks and humans address exceptions—being the most viable approach today. The company’s Autopicker system, which won a 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award, automates order picking, buffering, and stock replenishment while minimizing labor. Zizka will explain that while automating the final 10–20% of workflows—where edge cases and judgment calls occur—remains costly, operators should prioritize high-ROI tasks and gradually reduce human intervention as technology improves. At the summit, Zizka’s session, titled *When Robots Don’t Sleep: The Path Toward Lights-Out Warehouses*, will detail where partial automation works today, how to expand it safely, and the steps needed for full automation. The Robotics Summit & Expo, produced by The Robot Report and WTWH Media, features over 50 sessions across AI, logistics, and healthcare, with presentations by industry leaders like Fictiv and Harmonic Drive. Brightpick, spun off from machine vision provider Photoneo in 2021, specializes in AI-driven warehouse automation for operators of any size. Zizka previously co-founded Photoneo, which was acquired by Zebra Technologies in 2024, and holds a Ph.D. in computer vision from Comenius University. The Austin, Texas-based company’s solutions aim to balance automation with human flexibility, targeting workflows where ROI is strongest.