Feb 9, 2022 06:01 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 9, 2022 06:02 PM by C C.)
https://www.economist.com/science-and-te...s/21807595
EXCERPTS: A decade ago Amazon started to introduce robots into its “fulfilment centres”, as online retailers call their giant distribution warehouses. Instead of having people wandering up and down rows of shelves picking goods to complete orders, the machines would lift and then carry the shelves to the pickers. That saved time and money. Amazon now has more than 350,000 robots of various sorts deployed worldwide. But it is not enough to secure its future.
Advances in warehouse robotics, coupled with increasing labour costs and difficulty in finding workers, has created a watershed moment in the logistics industry. With covid-19 lockdowns causing supply-chain disruptions and a boom in home deliveries that looks likely to endure, fulfilment centres have been working at full tilt. Despite the bots, many firms have to bring in temporary workers to cope during busy periods. Competition for staff is fierce. In the run-up to the holiday shopping season in December, Amazon brought in some 150,000 extra workers in America alone, offering sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000.
The long-term implications of such a high reliance on increasingly hard-to-find labour in distribution is clear, according to a new study by McKinsey, a consultancy: “Automation in warehousing is no longer just nice to have but an imperative for sustainable growth.”
This means more robots are needed, including newer, more efficient versions to replace those already at work and advanced machines to take over most of the remaining jobs done by humans. As a result, McKinsey forecasts the warehouse-automation market will grow at a compound annual rate of 23% to be worth more than $50bn by 2030.
The new robots are coming. One of them is the prototype 600 Series bot. This machine “changes everything” according to Tim Steiner, chief executive of Ocado Group, which began in 2002 as an online British grocer and has evolved over the years into a leading provider of warehouse robotics.
The 600 Series is a strange-looking beast, much like a box on wheels made out of skeletal parts. That is because more than half its components are 3D-printed. As 3D-printing builds things up layer by layer it allows the shapes to be optimised, thus using the least amount of material. As a result, the 600 Series is five times lighter than the company’s present generation of bots, which makes it more agile and less demanding on battery power.
[...] Because such robots move quickly and could cause injury—Skypods zoom along at four metres-per-second (9mph)—they tend to operate in closed areas. If Amazon’s staff need to enter the robot area they don a special safety vest. This contains electronics which signal to any nearby bots that a human is present. The bot will then stop or take an alternative route.
Some robots, however, are designed to work alongside people in warehouses. [...] When robots work among people, however, they have to be fitted with additional safety systems, such as cameras, radar and other sensors, to avoid bumping into staff. Hence they tend to move slowly and are cautious, which can result in bots frequently coming to a standstill and slowing operations. However, machines that are more aware of their surroundings are on the way.
[...] So what jobs will remain? On the warehouse floor, at least, that mainly leaves technicians maintaining and fixing robots [...] But it is not just inside the warehouse where jobs will go, but outside, too, once driverless delivery vehicles are allowed. At that point many products will travel through the supply chain and arrive at peoples’ homes untouched by human hand.
However, other jobs will emerge. For a start, someone has to build all these new robots. [...] Technological change, though, inevitably creates new roles for people... As logistics gets more efficient through greater automation, and online businesses grow, the overall number of jobs in e-commerce should still increase... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: A decade ago Amazon started to introduce robots into its “fulfilment centres”, as online retailers call their giant distribution warehouses. Instead of having people wandering up and down rows of shelves picking goods to complete orders, the machines would lift and then carry the shelves to the pickers. That saved time and money. Amazon now has more than 350,000 robots of various sorts deployed worldwide. But it is not enough to secure its future.
Advances in warehouse robotics, coupled with increasing labour costs and difficulty in finding workers, has created a watershed moment in the logistics industry. With covid-19 lockdowns causing supply-chain disruptions and a boom in home deliveries that looks likely to endure, fulfilment centres have been working at full tilt. Despite the bots, many firms have to bring in temporary workers to cope during busy periods. Competition for staff is fierce. In the run-up to the holiday shopping season in December, Amazon brought in some 150,000 extra workers in America alone, offering sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000.
The long-term implications of such a high reliance on increasingly hard-to-find labour in distribution is clear, according to a new study by McKinsey, a consultancy: “Automation in warehousing is no longer just nice to have but an imperative for sustainable growth.”
This means more robots are needed, including newer, more efficient versions to replace those already at work and advanced machines to take over most of the remaining jobs done by humans. As a result, McKinsey forecasts the warehouse-automation market will grow at a compound annual rate of 23% to be worth more than $50bn by 2030.
The new robots are coming. One of them is the prototype 600 Series bot. This machine “changes everything” according to Tim Steiner, chief executive of Ocado Group, which began in 2002 as an online British grocer and has evolved over the years into a leading provider of warehouse robotics.
The 600 Series is a strange-looking beast, much like a box on wheels made out of skeletal parts. That is because more than half its components are 3D-printed. As 3D-printing builds things up layer by layer it allows the shapes to be optimised, thus using the least amount of material. As a result, the 600 Series is five times lighter than the company’s present generation of bots, which makes it more agile and less demanding on battery power.
[...] Because such robots move quickly and could cause injury—Skypods zoom along at four metres-per-second (9mph)—they tend to operate in closed areas. If Amazon’s staff need to enter the robot area they don a special safety vest. This contains electronics which signal to any nearby bots that a human is present. The bot will then stop or take an alternative route.
Some robots, however, are designed to work alongside people in warehouses. [...] When robots work among people, however, they have to be fitted with additional safety systems, such as cameras, radar and other sensors, to avoid bumping into staff. Hence they tend to move slowly and are cautious, which can result in bots frequently coming to a standstill and slowing operations. However, machines that are more aware of their surroundings are on the way.
[...] So what jobs will remain? On the warehouse floor, at least, that mainly leaves technicians maintaining and fixing robots [...] But it is not just inside the warehouse where jobs will go, but outside, too, once driverless delivery vehicles are allowed. At that point many products will travel through the supply chain and arrive at peoples’ homes untouched by human hand.
However, other jobs will emerge. For a start, someone has to build all these new robots. [...] Technological change, though, inevitably creates new roles for people... As logistics gets more efficient through greater automation, and online businesses grow, the overall number of jobs in e-commerce should still increase... (MORE - missing details)