From man to machines

At Amazon warehouse in Florence, robots have taken over the physical duties once carried out by humans, writes Nick Wingfield

traffic, because they no longer need aisle space for humans. The greater density of shelf space means more inventory under one roof, which means better selection for customers.

On one edge of the cage, a group of human workers — the “stowers” — stuff products onto the shelves, replenishing their inventory. The robots whisk those shelves away and when a customer order arrives for products stored on their backs, they queue up at stations on another edge of the cage like cars waiting to go through a toll both.

There, human “pickers” follow instructions on computer screens, grabbing items off the shelves and putting them in plastic bins, which then disappear on conveyor belts destined for “packers,” people who put the products in cardboard boxes bound for customers.

The robots make warehouse work less tedious and physically taxing, while also enabling the kinds of efficiency gains that let a customer order dental floss after breakfast and receive it before dinner.

The question going forward is: What happens when the future generations of robots arrive?

For now, there are warehouse tasks — for example, picking individual items off shelves, with all their various shapes and sizes — where people outperform robots.

Amazon has added 80,000 warehouse employees in the United States since adding the Kiva robots, for a total of more than 125,000 warehouse employees. And it says the warehouse hiring spree will continue.

In the case of the Florence facility, it opened up the new opportunity for Scott. At one point, one of the arms knocked over a tote, sending a dozen or so cone-shaped plastic coffee filters skidding across the ground. Scott hit a button that froze the arm so she could safely pick up the mess. Then the arms started working again. “The robot will work the same all day long,” said Edward Cohoon, who supervises Scott and other Amazon workers as they tend to individual robots. “Their stomachs don’t grumble.”