The UK arm of French warehouse-robotics company Exotec, whose Skypod robots climb storage racks to bring items to packing stations; its UK work runs from a UK projects team with customers such as Alliance Automotive Group in Sheffield.
Exotec is a French company that makes warehouse robots. Its main product, Skypod, is an order-picking system in which robots drive along the floor and then climb racks up to 12 metres high, take out the storage boxes and bring them to people or automated stations for packing. A second product, Skypicker, is a robot arm that works with Skypod; it handles items up to 2kg and can pick up to 600 items an hour per station. The whole system is controlled by its own software, called Astar, and runs around the clock.
Exotec is headquartered in the Lille area of France, with offices in the United States, Germany and Japan, according to a 2022 announcement. In the words of co-founder Romain Moulin, robots can transform warehouse order picking, make operations more efficient and make work easier for staff. We did not find a formal mission or values page. The company said in 2022 that it had more than 300 employees worldwide and planned to double its workforce by 2023, so it is a young, fast-growing business.
Exotec's UK presence began in 2020 through a partnership with LAC Conveyor Systems Limited, and in 2022 it announced a bigger UK investment, including an appearance at the IMHX warehouse show at the NEC in Birmingham. In September 2024 it named Ada Ajoku as head of UK Projects, a post that brings more than 15 years of automation experience from Dematic, and Bassem Awada as vice-president of business development, who had spent eight years at Amazon. A UK customer, Alliance Automotive Group UK, was announced as having a Skypod system in its new warehouse in Sheffield. The sources do not give a UK office address, so the UK staff may work from homes, customer sites or a base we could not confirm.
On culture, the main evidence is what people said at the 2024 hires. Ms Ajoku aimed for 'best-in-class deployment for customers across the UK'. Mr Awada called the UK 'a key growth area', and Thomas Genestar, managing director for Western Europe, said both would help develop UK activity. These are the company's own statements. We did not find a UK values page or staff stories, so what working life feels like in the UK team is unknown.
The roles in a company like this include project managers and engineers who install and test the robot systems at customer warehouses, software engineers who work on the controlling software, service technicians who keep the robots running, sales and business development staff, and customer success and training staff. If you are interested in robotics, engineering, automation or computing, this is a field where warehouse jobs are becoming technical. See Exotec's own website for roles.
Website: www.exotec.com
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