Amazon Reveals the Robots at the Heart of Its Epic Cyber Monday Operation

LA Times ^ | November 30, 2014 | Andrea Chang

[C19fan]

This holiday season, Amazon's little helper is an orange, 320-pound robot called Kiva.

The robots -- more than 15,000 of them companywide -- are part of Amazon's high-tech effort to get orders to customers faster. By lifting shelves of Amazon products off the ground and speedily delivering them to employee stations, the robots dramatically reduce the time it takes for workers to find items and put them into boxes for shipment.

[no-s]

Do you know if Amazon sells Kiva products to other companies?

Actually it looks like they put it back in play as a solutions provider. So if you have a big need you're probably in the target market.

[goldstategop]

Just renewed my Pro Plan dog food order.

I asked the poor sales girl at the local feed store to match Amazon’s price; she couldn’t. I shook my head at how my local feed store passed up a sale.

With a small add on order, I got free shipping - normally $22.00.

Will Kiva deliver it faster? I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

[minnesota_bound]

I find the deliver so convenient. It is quicker to order online then drive around to several stores and be frustrated in not finding what I want.

How does the robot get the stuff to put in cart? I guess there are other robots that do so or a human bot.
Amazing the planning that went into this.

I remember the old days when you wrote away for a catalog then waited weeks to get one then you wrote out an order on paper then mailed to company your order and you waited and waited. Now you wonder it is taking more then 2 days.....

[Wuli]

without the Federal Reserve’s endless credit binge, the current consumption bubble - that’s what it is - would not be financing Amazon’s latest quest to displace more human labor with technology

that quest, now the biggest change since the industrial revolution and with a more systemic affect than the industrial revolution (impacting a wider swath of all economies), cannot end good;

technology work and its jobs are increasing and cost of production per unit is declining, but none of that is resulting in MORE total jobs being created, in fact fewer total new jobs are being created as a result of technology and it now includes similar “technology is better than humans” invasions in services, complex analysis, engineering, design, supply chain and transportation

who says you will always at least employ gardeners?

[bert]

I am not an expert but have seen the pick robots in action.

Given a pick list, the robot enters the warehouse aisle known to contain the merchandise being picked. It finds the bin marked by barcode and picks the required number of articles from the shelf/bin. The picked merchandise is moved to the packing area where it is deposited for packing.