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Very cool, now the last step, automate the picker. So no humans are required to do this work. Saves a lot of money. And Amazon can be cheaper still. This is wh

Very cool, now the last step, automate the picker. So no humans are required to do this work. Saves a lot of money. And Amazon can be cheaper still. This is what IT is all about. Automate the humans away. Now what are we going to do with all those humans that are not capable of doing work that cannot be automated away?

corobo 12y ago
Send them to Mars for the science
zhte415 12y ago
Indeed. Somewhat coincidentally, today is the 101st anniversary of the Ford Assembly Line, where more autonomous functions allowed the production of a car to be reduced from 22 hours to 1.5 hours. It wasn't popular though: to fill 100 vacancies over 900 people had to be hired, the majority promptly quitting the repetitive and relentless work.
- gregpilling 12y ago
  and then the $5 day was implemented by Ford, and employee retention went from avg of 9 months to many years.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
    Turns out if you pay your workers they want to keep working for you.
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
Amazon actually has a competition [0] to design a robot that can do the picking. The difficult part ATM is being able to grab hold of a large variety of objects, from keychains to footlong dildos. I'm sure that they'll introduce picking robots for the more uniformly sized products like books soon enough, or introduce a container system to provide a generic framework for the picking robots to use. Still leaves humans to assert the quality of the products though, although with fully automated systems I'd imagine that products get damaged less while in the warehouses. [0] http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/ http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/
- swalsh 12y ago
  I've always imagined that if amazon would have as much negotiating power as Walmart does, they could mandate suppliers to put items in standard boxing, so you could put a bunch of vending machines on top of kiva bots.
  - goatforce5 12y ago
    ...or boxing that fits in standard sizes of storage containers that can be easily handled by the robots. Similar to how small sized by high-value items (video games, perfumes, etc) are often stored (and rattle around in) clear locked boxes on the shelves at department stores. The manufacturers could be encouraged to reduce their box size (and, thus the amount of room it takes up in the warehouse) by being charged a fee for items that took up too much room and/or non-standard room. For a while during Jobs' Keynotes they'd announce a new iPod, and then say how much smaller the packaging was. The end-user probably doesn't care, but for those in the supply change I guess it's a huge deal. Less airplanes and shipping containers from China, more stock on the same amount of shelves, etc.

corobo 12y ago

Send them to Mars for the science

zhte415 12y ago

Indeed. Somewhat coincidentally, today is the 101st anniversary of the Ford Assembly Line, where more autonomous functions allowed the production of a car to be reduced from 22 hours to 1.5 hours. It wasn't popular though: to fill 100 vacancies over 900 people had to be hired, the majority promptly quitting the repetitive and relentless work.

gregpilling 12y ago
and then the $5 day was implemented by Ford, and employee retention went from avg of 9 months to many years.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  Turns out if you pay your workers they want to keep working for you.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

Amazon actually has a competition [0] to design a robot that can do the picking. The difficult part ATM is being able to grab hold of a large variety of objects, from keychains to footlong dildos. I'm sure that they'll introduce picking robots for the more uniformly sized products like books soon enough, or introduce a container system to provide a generic framework for the picking robots to use. Still leaves humans to assert the quality of the products though, although with fully automated systems I'd imagine that products get damaged less while in the warehouses. [0] http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/ http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/

swalsh 12y ago
I've always imagined that if amazon would have as much negotiating power as Walmart does, they could mandate suppliers to put items in standard boxing, so you could put a bunch of vending machines on top of kiva bots.
- goatforce5 12y ago
  ...or boxing that fits in standard sizes of storage containers that can be easily handled by the robots. Similar to how small sized by high-value items (video games, perfumes, etc) are often stored (and rattle around in) clear locked boxes on the shelves at department stores. The manufacturers could be encouraged to reduce their box size (and, thus the amount of room it takes up in the warehouse) by being charged a fee for items that took up too much room and/or non-standard room. For a while during Jobs' Keynotes they'd announce a new iPod, and then say how much smaller the packaging was. The end-user probably doesn't care, but for those in the supply change I guess it's a huge deal. Less airplanes and shipping containers from China, more stock on the same amount of shelves, etc.