The state of shipment of goods at the latest Amazon shipping warehouse "fulfillment center" advancing robotization

When asked with Amazon fulfillment center, it seems that there are many cases where it is reminiscent of the scene that many people walk around circulating the products in a vast warehouse ... .... However,We have been introducing work robots since 2012At Amazon's fulfillment center, robots that are automatically controlled instead of humans are changing to move around. The state of CNN's interview with the latest Amazon's latest fulfillment center is released.

Amazon only needs a minute of human labor to ship your next package - Oct. 6, 2016
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/06/technology/amazon-warehouse-robots/index.html

A state where tall product racks line up. The yellow shelf is divided into small sections, and goods are put in each.


It is crawling under this shelf, lifting the entire shelf and moving it, Amazon's purchase in 2012 "Kiva"The robot. It has wheels that can move 360 ​​degrees freely and is running around in the warehouse. Due to the introduction of the robot, the degree of freedom of the shelf position is dramatically improved, and it seems that the accumulation rate of products in the entire warehouse has dramatically improved.


The work staff "Picker", which once used to walk around the warehouse, now only waits at the "picking station" Kiva delivers the goods. Follow the instructions of the computer, remove the item from the shelf and arrange the items you ordered to send to the next "packing station".


The goods collected by the picker are put in a box, moved on the roller table, and sent to the packing station which packs the boxes. The length of the roller base of the whole fulfillment center is as long as 8 miles (about 13 km).


At the packing station, the size of the box according to the order from the customer is automatically selected by the computer, and the operator takes the designated box and packs it. At this time, the length of the gummed tape to be used is also specified, and the worker only pastes the gum tape which the machine spit out to the hand. People judge only "how much cushioning material to use", but from the picking of goods until packing and shipping, the time that a person's hand touches the item is less than 60 seconds.


Products boxed in this way are carried to the truck again by the roller table. This flow is also automated, and it comes down automatically from the line when it reaches the target track position.


This is Amazon's fulfillment center where robotic automation is being promoted, but it does not necessarily mean that the number of employees has been reduced necessarily. At this fulfillment center in Baltimore, USA, 3,000 employees are working, and Amazon as a whole has adopted 77,700 employees only in 2015, and even in the first half of 2016 it already has 31,800 People are newly adopted.

You can actually see how many robots are moving in the following movies.