SOLWR is our new collarboration partner
- For us, it is important to be able to document a real sustainability effect and not fall into the "greenwashing trap". Terravera is for us an objective partner who can help identify and document the assumed positive sustainability effect from our products and solutions. We will in turn share this expertise with our customers who are seeking good solutions to achieve their sustainability ambitions, says Synnøve Kjerstad, Head of Sustainability at Solwr.
Solwr consists of two companies: Solwr Robotics and Solwr Software. The company has its headquarters in Ålesund, with additional offices in Trondheim and Oslo. “We have approximately 90 employees who are primarily engaged in research, product development, and operations. After several years of significant investments in product development, we introduced several new products to the market in 2022, resulting in a total revenue of NOK 85 million,” says Kjerstad.
“We deliver tomorrow’s logistics and automation solutions for the retail industry, with a focus on making these scalable, integrable, and sustainable. Solwr has some of Norway’s largest retail players as clients, and we are currently expanding into several European countries. The products that together form our comprehensive solution are: Trace™ — a cloud-based ERP system that addresses complex logistics needs for inventory owners, including order processing, warehouse management, and transport; Sort™ — a pallet sorting system for reusable packaging and pallets; and Grab™ — an autonomous warehouse-picking robot,” Kjerstad explains.
A Strong Focus on Sustainability
“Sustainability is a core part of our business, and we are working on implementing it at multiple levels as part of our business strategy. As a supplier to major retail players, there is significant potential to achieve beneficial sustainability effects for emissions and health by offering sustainable value propositions for logistics management through our products and services. We are also optimizing the design of the Grab picking robot, where reducing the carbon footprint is one of the desired outcomes. We strongly believe in the sustainability potential of this robot, which offers a solid alternative to today’s large, material- and space-intensive automation solutions by operating within existing infrastructure,” says Kjerstad.
What Challenges Do You See in the Industry?
“International retail involves the constant movement of large quantities of goods, and the need to do this efficiently, sustainably, and securely is accelerating. At the same time, many companies are stuck with yesterday’s technological solutions, which they must abandon to remain competitive. Solwr’s solutions help customers achieve savings at multiple stages of the supply chain. Margins in logistics and transport are extremely tight, and the need for profitable and efficient solutions is substantial. Additionally, the volume is high, so even small improvements can have a significant impact,” says Kjerstad.
She also encourages collaboration, stating that the “sustainability tangle” can be solved through cooperation across entire value chains. “Data sharing, knowledge exchange, partnerships, and standardization are necessary to create good common solutions.”
Collaboration and Standardization for Better Solutions
Kjerstad highlights that Terravera’s approach — combining modeling, analysis, academia, and iterative processes — ensures rapid interim results, allowing for course adjustments along the way.
The first project with Terravera will be a comparative analysis of the footprint of the Grab autonomous picking robot. The analysis will compare a robot installed in existing infrastructure versus a fully automated “goods-to-man” solution that requires new infrastructure.
“We have long wanted to document the impact of our products and services. However, we feared not being able to do so in a sufficiently objective manner. We also realized that this would require a comprehensive analysis, demanding expertise and resources we haven’t had until now. Through our collaboration with Terravera, we hope to find a viable way to document the impact across our entire portfolio,” concludes Kjerstad.
Terravera looks forward to a fruitful collaboration!
