Dallas- and Miami-based Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is partnering with Silicon Valley’s Corvus Robotics for a nationwide rollout of a drone-conducted inventory system.
The Corvus One autonomous inventory management system is now in use across Southern Glazer’s distribution network. Over the past 18 months, Southern Glazer’s has deployed more than 40 Corvus One autonomous drones in nine distribution centers around the country, with continued expansion planned.
“Across our network, inventory accuracy directly impacts how effectively we serve our customers,” said Karli Sage, VP of supply chain management, technology & engineering at Southern Glazer’s.
“By increasing the frequency and precision of our reserve inventory validation,” she added in a statement, “we’re identifying issues earlier, improving fill rates, and enabling our teams to focus on proactive problem solving instead of reactive counting. The speed at which we have scaled this technology across nine sites reflects the value it is delivering to our operations.”
Southern Glazer’s said the rollout supports its broader supply chain transformation goals and strengthens its commitment to operational excellence across its network.
How the system benefits Southern Glazer’s
Corvus One operates constantly in active warehouse environments, autonomously flying aisles to scan and validate reserve storage locations without disrupting case-picking operations. The result is hands-free, high-frequency inventory audits that sync directly with Southern Glazer’s warehouse management system so the team can work on higher-value tasks.
The system has completed about 5,000 flights and identified over 35,000 verified discrepancies in Southern Glazer facilities.
Per Corvus and Southern Glazer’s, benefits of the system include:
:: Operational Throughput: Improved inventory accuracy has contributed to a 100-basis point improvement in cases per hour, allowing faster and more efficient fulfillment of customer orders.
:: Sixfold Inventory Validation Increase: Shifting from a quarterly count schedule to biweekly scans across facilities, Southern Glazer’s has leveraged higher-frequency visibility so teams can identify and resolve discrepancies before they impact picking and outbound shipping.
:: More Efficient Use of Labor: Approximately 60 to 70 labor hours per week per site have been reallocated from manual cycle counting to higher-value operational priorities. Inventory teams focus on resolving verified discrepancies rather than performing broad manual counts, using the Corvus interface to review high-resolution images, label scans, and historical video logs tied to specific storage locations.
Setting ‘a new benchmark’
The system’s visual record of each scan provides searchable, time-stamped footage of pallet positions and license plate labels, allowing for speedy analysis and coaching. Verified discrepancies can include misplaced pallets, missing LPNs, or incorrect placements that, in beverage distribution, can represent significant dollar value per pallet, the companies said.
“Southern Glazer’s operates at a scale where small improvements in accuracy have meaningful downstream impact,” said Corvus Robotics CEO Jackie Wu. “Their team has embraced autonomous inventory as core infrastructure within their supply chain transformation initiative. Scaling to nine facilities with more than 40 drones demonstrates strong operational buy-in and sets a new benchmark for how beverage distributors can modernize inventory control without slowing the floor.”
The partnership includes regular cross-site operational reviews, allowing Southern Glazer’s facilities to share best practices and continuously refine how autonomous inventory is integrated into daily workflows. As more facilities come online, the companies said that they will continue collaborating to standardize deployment models and performance benchmarks across the network.
For food and beverage distributors managing high SKU counts, fast-moving case-picking environments, and rapid service level expectations, frequent and autonomous reserve validation provides earlier detection of discrepancies, stronger performance in filling order, and measurable improvements in warehouse throughput, the companies said.
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