KION and Accenture Drive Supply Chain Efficiency with NVIDIA

In the race to optimise supply chains, manufacturers are leaning heavily on AI to meet growing demands for speed, accuracy and adaptability.

At the forefront of this transformation is KION GROUP AG, a global leader in industrial trucks and supply chain solutions.

Collaborating with technology giant NVIDIA and consultancy firm Accenture, KION is redefining warehouse automation through cutting-edge AI-driven digital twin technology.

Reinventing warehouses with digital twins

KION’s partnership with Accenture and NVIDIA has resulted in an innovative use of NVIDIA’s Mega Omniverse blueprint. This advanced simulation technology underpins large-scale industrial digital twins — virtual replicas of physical systems powered by AI grounded in real-world physics.

Using these digital twins, KION enhances its smart warehouse systems, integrating automated forklifts, intelligent cameras and robotics to streamline operations. These systems not only boost efficiency but also offer real-time adaptability, essential in today’s dynamic supply chain environment.

“At KION, we leverage AI-driven solutions as an integral part of our strategy to optimise our customers’ supply chains and increase their productivity,” explains Rob Smith, CEO of KION GROUP AG.

“With NVIDIA’s AI leadership and Accenture’s expertise in digital technologies, we are reinventing warehouse automation.

“Bringing these strong partners together, we are creating a vision for future warehouses that are part of a smart agile system, evolve with the world around them and can handle nearly any supply chain challenge.

"This collaboration underscores our commitment to innovation and pushing the boundaries of industrial automation to usher in a new era of supply chain efficiency.”

Accenture’s role in transformation

Accenture plays a pivotal role in this initiative, particularly in showcasing the capabilities of KION’s digital twins at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. 

The interactive application developed for the event allows users to evaluate how optimised robot fleet planning impacts critical warehouse metrics such as throughput, task completion and safety.

Accenture’s collaboration is bolstered by its strategic alliance with NVIDIA. Last year, the consultancy formed the Accenture NVIDIA business group to help clients scale AI-driven solutions.

These systems, which include generative AI and digital twins, are tailored to improve supply chain resilience, warehouse operations and overall productivity.

Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO of Accenture, emphasises the importance of this endeavour: “Modernising supply chains to make them more resilient and agile, with real-time flexibility, is the next digital frontier.

“This collaboration with our long-term client KION and partner NVIDIA will break exciting new ground in not only reinventing the warehouse, but also in raising their performance standards with technology, data and AI, helping our clients operate autonomous, safe supply chains that better serve their customers and consumers, enhance productivity and efficiency and create new value.”

Smarter warehouses, smarter robots

Managing today’s warehouses requires balancing human labour and automation while maintaining adaptability to fluctuating demands.

KION’s digital twins, powered by NVIDIA’s Omniverse, address these complexities by allowing operators to test and optimise warehouse configurations without disrupting ongoing operations.

Through simulations, operators can experiment with layouts, assess robot and equipment performance, and train fleets under varying conditions. These capabilities extend to KION’s warehouse management software, enabling seamless task allocation to virtual robots and streamlining operational planning.

The inclusion of NVIDIA’s training systems further enhances robot functionality. These systems simulate real-world scenarios, ensuring that robots can adapt to changing inventory levels and evolving consumer demands.

Pioneering the future of supply chain operations

Looking ahead, KION, Accenture, and NVIDIA are focused on integrating digital twins with a vision language model. This addition will analyse real-time warehouse data to minimise risks like bottlenecks and accidents.

NVIDIA’s NIM (Neural Infrastructure Modelling) also plays a key role, deploying foundational models to edge devices, enhancing safety and efficiency across warehouse networks.

Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA, summarises the potential of this collaboration: “Future warehouses will function like massive autonomous robots, orchestrating fleets of robots within them.

"By integrating Omniverse and Mega into their solutions, KION and Accenture can dramatically accelerate the development of industrial AI and autonomy for the world’s distribution and logistics ecosystem.”

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