A new human job is born at Amazon's fulfillment center where work robots are introduced

In 2012Acquired "Kiva Systems" of robot development company that automates warehouseSince then, Amazon has been leaving much of the warehouse work that humans had done to robots ever since. It is a wave of automation which seemed to be a typical example of the case that "If a robot robs human's work," it is actually a wave of automation, but in reality, a new work done by humans is born and an environment where both partners "coexist" is born It seems to be.

As Amazon Pushes Forward With Robots, Workers Find New Roles - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/technology/amazon-robots-workers.html

The automation in the warehouse where Amazon has been working on about since around 2012 began to gradually leave results and that many of the work related to the transportation of goods is often carried by the robot. A woman Nisa Scott, who works at Amazon Fulfillment Center in New Jersey, was the first to be handed out at the end of 2016 to move the yellow plastic basket containing the product, but in the summer of 2017 As soon as that work was handled by one robot arm.


Since then, Mr. Scott's job has changed to doing "robotic amulet". The robot finds a basket by himself, grabs it with a catch at the tip of the arm and moves it, but Mr. Scott is required to check whether the work is done without problems. Previously it was daily to move baskets, but since the robot came, it was released from a simple "repetitive task", and the content of the work has changed to "work" with little change. Mr. Scott talks about that change, "For me, it was to be asked for the change in the way of thinking, because it is not a simple task repeatedly."


Amazon, which became the world's largest online retailer, is often caught as "to destroy traditional work style", but in fact it is often overlooked that it is producing a very large number of jobs. The number of people working at Amazon warehouses continues to increase year by year, and as of the summer 2017, more than 125,000 people are working only at the American fulfillment center. And it should be noticed that the number of employees has increased by 80,000 since around 2012 when robot introduction began. In addition, Amazon is scheduled to start operation of "HQ 2", which will be the second headquarters in the US, in 2018, and it is also planned to produce 50,000 new employment.

Amazon planned to establish "second headquarters" in the United States, accepting candidates from multiple million cities - GIGAZINE


Speaking of the work of people who work in Amazon's warehouse once, "picking" items and collecting them to the packing station while walking around in a vast warehouse that stocks an enormous amount of goods according to the route decided by the computer, Although it was, it seems that there is almost no place where this work is done now. There is no difference that the goods in the warehouse are managed by the computer, but the goods placed in the stock warehouse are gathered in the box which is divided into small as below ......


The robot carrying the box carries the product to the "picking station" where people run around in the warehouse and the products are collected by the hands of people. In the warehouse where robotization has advanced, it seems that the division of division that the robot does simple work and the picking of goods which the person is better is left to human beings is done.


Products gathered in this manner run around the route connecting the warehouse, are packed at the end, are placed on the truck and shipped to the purchaser. Voices worried that people are gone from the warehouse as a result of robotization has been heard in the past, but for the moment it can be said that worrying about it has ended in an unexpected situation at the moment. Rather, the "immediate delivery service" provided by Amazon is a situation in which the existence of a robot and a person are indispensable, Dave Clark who is in charge of automation of Amazon warehouse says, "There is nothing to be no more people" I will talk.


However, there is no guarantee that the same situation will continue in the future, the same thing can be said anywhere, not only Amazon. Martin Ford, a writer focused on robotic automation, said, "I predict that jobs will gradually be replaced by robots in the future, so that human employment will never disappear overnight, but now When the employment pace of Amazon began to slow down, that sign can be said to have appeared, "he says to pay attention to future changes.