Amazon Now Wanting to Automate Pick and Pack
March 25th, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review:
Robots will use the latest computer-vision and machine-learning algorithms to try to perform the work done by humans in vast fulfillment centers.
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My favorite store in all of western Europe is a large building in the vicinity of Köln (Cologne), known as “Music Store”. It’s the largest musical retail establishment in Europe, according to their in-house marketing. They moved the bulk of their operations from their original over-crowded inner city location to a sub-urban site, housed in a shiny new multi-story retail front. They also relocated their warehouse to a second building onsite.
It is a fully-automated “pick & pack” facility ala Amazon. All in store orders and mail order are routed through this single facility. It’s nowhere near the scale of an Amazon facility, but it definitely provides proof of concept, designed specifically to handle fragile products like musical instruments.
Amazon getting their robot on isn’t an if, it’s a when.
Amazon is displacing retail workers around the US or world, and also might displace their own box packers. Yet, they have been rapidly hiring computer staff and packing them into downtown Seattle by the thousands. The sleepy light industrial area north of downtown is being converted into tall Amazon offices and residential. The CEO chose not to build suburban office parks because he embraced a vision of urban living. Anyway, the rapid changes without a rail transit system has really increased traffic and rents. Yesterday, a single truck crash south of downtown somehow was a linchpin that showed the critical vulnerabilities of their system – traffic froze through all of downtown and people took an hour just to go one mile because there are no alternate routes, and were reporting 3 hour commutes. http://www.komonews.com/news/local/SPD-explains-9-hour-cleanup-of-SR-99-crash-mess-297559161.html
http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/03/25/21958021/take-your-burning-rage-from-yesterdays-traffic-mess-and-fire-it-towards-olympia
[also, this is a stunning statistic – controlling 1/4 of Seattle downtown office space]
Amazon’s lease of a full city block in South Lake Union next to its global headquarters puts the firm on track to eventually occupy about 10 million square feet in downtown Seattle — or one-fourth of the market’s inventory of premium office space.
The company confirmed Tuesday it will move into 817,000 square feet at Troy Block, a two-building complex by Seattle-based developer Touchstone. One tower will open in mid-2016, the other a year later.
If the tech juggernaut fills all 10 million square feet, Seattle could have the nation’s highest concentration of office space occupied by a single business. Based on that footprint, Amazon could grow to nearly 50,000 employees, easily topping the University of Washington as the city’s largest employer.
“You’re putting a lot of eggs in one basket,” said Kip Spencer, a local real-estate expert who founded Officespace.com. “In the event of a retrenchment, it could have a fairly significant negative spiral effect.” http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/amazon-will-add-troy-block-towers-to-its-seattle-office-empire/