Case Study

Southern Glazer’s Scales Autonomous Inventory Drones Across 9 Distribution Centers

Scaled deployment across nine facilities increases inventory visibility, improves fulfillment performance, and supports supply chain transformation initiatives

Site Deployments

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Drones

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Flights

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Verified Discrepancies

The Challenges

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is the largest distributor of beverage alcohol in the United States, operating a nationwide network of distribution centers that support high-volume, case-picking operations.

In this environment, inventory accuracy directly impacts customer fill rates, order throughput, and overall service performance. Even small discrepancies can create downstream issues in picking, shipping, and customer satisfaction.

Prior to deploying Corvus One:

  • Inventory processes relied heavily on manual cycle counting

  • Counts were performed on a quarterly cadence, limiting visibility

  • Discrepancies were often discovered during picking or shipping

  • Teams spent significant time searching for missing or misplaced product

Southern Glazer’s required:

  • More frequent visibility into reserve inventory across facilities
  • Earlier detection of discrepancies before impacting outbound operations
  • Improved inventory accuracy to support fulfillment performance
  • A solution that operates without disrupting existing warehouse workflows
A Corvus One autonomous inventory drone scanning warehouse racking at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits distribution center, enabling real-time inventory visibility in a high-bay storage environment

The Corvus Solution

Southern Glazer’s deployed the Corvus One autonomous inventory management system across nine distribution centers nationwide.

Corvus One is a fully autonomous aerial system powered by onboard AI and computer vision. It continuously scans and validates reserve storage locations, operating without human operators, infrastructure modifications, or localization markers.

The system integrates into existing workflows, enabling continuous inventory visibility without disrupting warehouse operations.

Over the course of deployment, Southern Glazer’s scaled to more than 40 autonomous drones across its network in less than 18 months.

A Corvus One autonomous warehouse drone scanning palletized beverage inventory at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits facility, capturing barcode data to improve inventory accuracy and supply chain visibility

Corvus One provides a historical, time-stamped visual record of every scan, allowing Southern Glazer’s teams to trace inventory movement, investigate discrepancies, and identify root causes without relying on manual recounts.

A Corvus One AI-powered warehouse drone performing autonomous inventory scanning inside a Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits distribution center, improving inventory visibility and operational efficiency

In regulated alcohol distribution environments, accurate inventory is critical for compliance, traceability, and order integrity. Corvus One helps ensure product is in the right location and accounted for.

The Impact

  • 6X Increase in Inventory Visibility - Inventory cycles shifted from a quarterly cadence to biweekly turns, significantly increasing visibility across facilities.

  • Operational Throughput Improvement - Increased inventory accuracy has contributed to a 100 basis point improvement in cases per hour, enabling faster and more efficient order fulfillment.

  • Labor Reallocated to Higher-Value Work - Approximately 60 to 70 labor hours per week per site have been redirected from manual counting to addressing higher-impact operational priorities.

  • Proactive Issue Detection - Higher-frequency visibility allows teams to identify and resolve discrepancies before they impact picking and outbound shipping.

  • Network-Wide Visibility at Scale - Across nine facilities, the system provides continuous, facility-wide insight into inventory conditions, supporting more consistent execution across the network.

What Southern Glazer's Says

Across our network, inventory accuracy directly impacts how effectively we serve our customers. By increasing the frequency and precision of our reserve inventory validation, we are 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

Karli Sage, VP SCM, Technology & Engineering at Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits.Karli Sage
VP, SCM Technology & Engineering

 

Team members from Corvus Robotics and Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits pose for a photo in front of high-bay racking and a Corvus One landing pad in Southern Glazer's Raymore, MO distribution Center.

The Takeaway

For beverage distributors operating high-volume, case-picking environments, inventory accuracy is directly tied to fulfillment performance and customer service levels. Periodic manual counts introduce delays that can impact downstream operations.

Southern Glazer’s deployment demonstrates how autonomous inventory systems can:

  • Increase inventory visibility across multiple facilities without increasing labor
  • Identify discrepancies earlier to prevent disruption in picking and shipping
  • Operate without disrupting existing warehouse workflows
  • Enable teams to focus on resolving issues rather than searching for them
  • Scale consistently across a national distribution network

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Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits is the world’s preeminent distributor of beverage alcohol, building brands for moments that matter. The multi-generational, family-owned Company has operations in 47 U.S. markets and Canada, as well as brokerage operations through its Southern Glazer’s Travel Retail Sales & Export Division in the Caribbean, Central and South America.