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Months before fierce battle for its second world headquarters in Queens, Amazon has planted a huge 855,000 square foot flag on Staten Island. The $ 100 million JFK8 order processing center opened last fall after a hiring wave "on the spot" to eventually employ 2,250 people.
The smell of the new plant was still present in the air when we visited the space in February. Things were brilliant and new, but always humming. It's a 24-hour process designed to meet the fast parcel delivery standards that the company has established – for the better and the worse – in the world of e-commerce.
JFK8 is a kind of church for the world of capitalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century and, whatever the country where you find yourself in front of the Amazonian politics, it's an impressive sight to see, because packets slip on complex road systems overnight deliveries.
This space also offers a compelling insight into the factories of the future, where men and robots work hand in hand, so to speak. The company currently has approximately 100,000 robotic systems deployed in more than 25 fulfillment centers, which it says has helped the company store 40 percent of the additional inventory in its execution centers.
Those exposed to the Staten Island facilities span the gamut, from ship sorters that pbad through the conveyors to start parcels in their own chute up to robotic arms for giant palletizers, developed in conjunction with the Japanese giant's 39, automation, Fanuc.
All work in the same direction, the internal robots of Amazon constituting the heart of the system. On a few flights, robots crisscross the ground in a tightly controlled space, like giant Roombas with highly choreographed movements.
Mobile robots were the heart of the company's $ 775-million acquisition of Kiva in 2012, which would be renamed Amazon Robotics three years later. The Kiva name still appears in some of the traditional signs, including the labels that appear around the perimeter of the robot's enclosed space, but Amazon has not been slow in incorporating what was at the time his second most important acquisition.
"I think when Amazon looked at us, they were very interested in the technology we had developed and acquired because they wanted to integrate them into the distribution centers, as we do today," said Scott Dresser. , director of Amazon Robotics Software, Systems and Solutions tells TechCrunch. "It's the main storage system in a distribution center. It houses all the inventory. "
The army of robots is walled by fences that recall only cases of batting in the interior. At the edges, Amazon employees work at the pickup and docking stations, alongside the robots, to determine the best way to store stock on the rack modules and determine how the items will be shipped together.
Dresser quickly rejects the hypothesis that robots will squarely replace their human colleagues in the short term, noting that each has distinct but complementary skills.
"Employees and our team members really know where to put products in storage shelves," he says. "The systems are not good at doing it. We are able to take advantage of user benefits and system benefits. We see this pattern reproduce in many different applications. We certainly see this as an increase in what people do and help them to be as effective as possible with what they do. "
Soil security is a growing concern. A recent story about an explosive bear club cartridge that sent 24 employees to Robbinsville County, New Jersey's warehouse hospital, once again highlighted the problem . While the incident initially involved an Amazon robot, the company denies that any of them has been involved.
The fence surrounding the robots is specifically designed to protect employees from the dangers, an increasingly important concern at the moment when large machines are part of everyday life in these type of factories. Human employees are generally not allowed in this confined space for security and efficiency reasons, but a flawed system requires occasional interaction. Things fall out of pods, robots break down.
That's why the company launched the robotic safety vest. The bright orange mesh vest includes a belt containing various sensors that add a few pounds to the employee's lift.
"It complements the technology embedded in the robotic drive system," Rob Dresser says. "This vest is detectable by the robot. There is a system that knows that the badociate is nearby and based on this signal. "
An employee demonstrates the vest, flicking a button, opening the fence and walking on the ground. The distant robots slow down, while those in the vicinity stop completely. This is another level of extra security. If the incident of the bear mbad shows something, it is the speed with which the news of accidents related to robotics spread, whether or not it is a robot.
As more and more people buy more and more products online, these robotics armies will undoubtedly play an increasingly central role in meeting this demand.
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