Peter Wurman
"Sometimes you don't even know where to start on a problem. But oftentimes you know that there's some part of the problem that you can work on, and if you work on that part, it can open up avenues to work on the next part. And that can lead you down a path to the final solution."
Peter Wurman, Mick Mountz and Raffaello D’Andrea created the Kiva system, a mobile robotic system for material handling in distribution centers that has revolutionized warehouse order fulfillment.
Wurman, who grew up in Wausau, Wisconsin, has always enjoyed finding solutions to problems. In his youth, when he used the money given to him for his bar mitzvah to purchase an Apple II computer and found there were no programs available to use with the computer, he learned how to program the Apple II himself. “I definitely enjoy being faced with a problem and having to think of multiple ways to solve it,” Wurman shared in an interview with the National Inventors Hall of Fame®. “It extends from little things, like when I was a kid playing games to trying to figure out how to solve Kiva’s big technical problems.”
After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1987, he attended the University of Michigan, where he earned his master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science in 1988 and 1996, respectively, followed by his doctorate in computer science in 1999.
In 2002, Wurman, then assistant professor of computer science at North Carolina State University, was contacted by his former MIT roommate Mountz, who had an idea that could improve warehouse distribution efficiencies. Mountz and Wurman were joined by D’Andrea, a robotics expert and professor at Cornell University. The team formed a company, originally called Distrobot, and developed a multi-agent software architecture run on centralized computers to track inventory and wirelessly command robots to perform delivery tasks. The company was renamed Kiva Systems in 2005.
The Kiva system used thousands of mobile robots and sophisticated control software to bring inventory shelves to workers, significantly improving all areas of fulfillment center operations from safety and productivity to cycle time and throughput. As chief technology officer, Wurman was responsible for the system architecture and decision-making algorithms that allocated the tasks and coordinated the motion of the robot fleet.
Wurman explained, “Mick knew the business problem and had the expertise to write the business plan and insights to understand the customer’s needs. I knew the software side, which allowed me to design the software architecture and the algorithms that assign resources efficiently. Raff could lead the robot design and write the control algorithms so the robots drove straight and lifted shelves reliably.”
Kiva’s first customer was Staples, followed by dozens of others including Walgreens, whose fulfillment center used over 1,000 robots. In 2012, Amazon purchased Kiva and renamed the enterprise Amazon Robotics. At that time, Kiva had systems in more than 30 warehouses in North America and Europe.
Named on more than 60 U.S. patents, Wurman shares the 2008 IEEE/IFR Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award with Mountz and D’Andrea. He is currently executive director of Sony AI.
When asked what motivates him, Wurman answered, “What I enjoy most is a combination of building systems and solving hard problems. I like challenging technology problems that have an impact on the world, where you build something that other people really use.” He has personally visited children participating in the Camp Invention® program to encourage the same drive to solve problems in the next generation.
