Raphael Thys
A humanoid robot at work at an Amazon facility. Amazon
Amazon has begun testing a humanoid robot at its facilities in a significant push to further warehouse automation. This week, it began testing Digit, a two-legged robot that can grip and hoist objects, at facilities. The gadget will be first used to move empty tote boxes.
The company has also introduced a new robotic system called Sequoia to assist employees in fulfilling consumer requests, which is applied to one of its fulfillment centers in Houston, Texas.
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Amazon’s ambitious push to incorporate robotics across its massive operation has generated concerns about the impact on its almost 1.5 million-person workforce. Such developments come as research has shown that automation efforts can potentially eliminate 73 million jobs in the United States of America by 2030.
The firm ventured into the world of automation with a significant investment in 2012 to boost supply chain productivity by acquiring Kiva, a robotics business. Amazon now has over 750,000 robots “collaborating” with its staff, “performing very repetitive jobs and freeing up employees to better serve our clients,” in a statement.
Increased efficiency
The company is looking to further speed and accuracy for delivery estimates by introducing its new robotic system while trying to improve team member safety. Amazon claims that Sequoia enables it to detect and store merchandise received at its fulfillment centers 75 percent faster than its previous timelines.
Also, Sequoia decreases the time it takes to process an order via a fulfillment center by up to 25 percent when orders are placed, improving our shipping predictability and increasing the number of items it can offer for one-day delivery, claimed Amazon.
Sequoia combines numerous robot systems to containerize goods into totes, combining mobile robots, gantry systems, robotic arms, and an ergonomic staff workstation. Amazon says mobile robots move containerized merchandise directly to a gantry, a tall structure with a platform holding equipment that can either resupply totes or send them to an employee to select inventory that clients have requested.
The safety quotient of its employees is furthered as they get these bags at a newly built ergonomic workstation that allows them to conduct all of their work in their power zone, between mid-thigh and mid-chest height. “With this system, employees will no longer have to regularly reach above their heads or squat down to pick customer orders, supporting our efforts to reduce the risk of injuries,” said a statement.
After retrieving client orders from inventory, the remaining stock must be aggregated to fill the totes to manage site storage efficiently. This is where Sparrow, the firm’s newest robotic arm, comes in, doing the very repetitious process of consolidating merchandise in totes so that full totes may be returned to storage.
First humanoid robot
In this transition, the firm uses its first humanoid robots, mobile robots that can move while grasping and handling items. Named Digit, it works collaboratively with employees, helping to move, grab, and arrange goods in warehouse areas and corners in unique ways.
Digit was created by Agility Robotics, an Amazon-backed start-up located in Oregon. The robot is 5ft 9in (175cm) tall and weighs 143lbs (65kg). It can move forwards, backward, sideways, and crouch. It can support up to 35 pounds (16 kilograms).
According to Amazon, the “initial use for this technology will be to help employees with tote recycling, a highly repetitive process of picking up and moving empty totes once inventory has been completely picked out of them,” said a statement.
Addressing concerns regarding job losses due to the incoming automation initiatives, Tye Brady, the chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, said that using robots would create new employment even as it would eliminate some already existing ones that involve “menial, the mundane and the repetitive” tasks.
The firm stressed the need for any operation to have people to oversee the process and to think critically. “We will always need people … I’ve never been around an automated system that works 100 percent of the time. I don’t think you have as well,” said Brady during a media interaction at an Amazon facility in Seattle.
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