Tharsus
UK contract manufacturer and robotics integrator; designed and built Ocado's Hive warehouse robots and the MOOSE autonomous robot for RB Retail.
Tharsus is a UK-based contract manufacturer and advanced robotics engineering company headquartered in Blyth, Northumberland, England. The company positions itself as a specialist engineering partner for technology companies seeking to take complex electromechanical machines and robotic systems from prototype through to high-volume commercial production. Tharsus describes itself as "the engineer's contract manufacturer," offering integrated product design, mechanical and electronic engineering, supply chain management, and manufacturing scale-up services from its Blyth facility. The company's roots trace to a metalworking business that was subsequently redirected toward precision engineering and robotics contract manufacturing.
Tharsus is most prominently known for its long-running manufacturing partnership with Ocado Group, the UK online grocery platform, which began in 2013. Tharsus served as co-designer and sole manufacturer of the autonomous grid robots that underpin the Ocado Smart Platform, a fulfillment system in which swarms of battery-powered robots operate over a three-dimensional hive grid structure to retrieve grocery crates. The first robots were manufactured in 2015, and the first robotically picked Ocado customer orders were fulfilled in 2016. At Ocado's Andover customer fulfillment center, approximately 1,000 Tharsus-manufactured robots traverse a grid the size of a soccer field at speeds of up to 13 feet per second, enabling a 50-item grocery order to be assembled in under five minutes—compared to approximately two hours in human-only picking environments. Ocado subsequently extended the Tharsus partnership to support post-pandemic demand and continued platform upgrades.
Tharsus has developed production capacity to build thousands of robotic units annually and also provides aftermarket support, spare parts supply chains, and ongoing engineering development services to its partners. Because Ocado licenses the Smart Platform to international grocery retailers including Kroger in the United States, the robots manufactured by Tharsus are deployed in fulfillment operations in multiple countries. Tharsus represents an example of UK industrial robotics manufacturing where engineering co-development and contract production are combined to bring large-scale automated fulfillment systems into commercial operation.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
Hive Robot
Autonomous warehouse robot designed for Ocado's grid-based customer fulfilment centres.
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Contact Tharsus
WEBSITE
https://tharsus.comPHONE
+44 1670 367000HEADQUARTERS
United Kingdom
Company Facts
Founded
1964
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
employees 100-500
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
-
