Posted on 05/25/2021 8:53:41 AM PDT by BeauBo
The robots are coming to labor-strapped North American warehouses.
Growing numbers of self-driving machines are shuttling clothing and sports equipment down warehouse aisles, pulling bins of groceries, cosmetics and industrial parts from high stacks and handing off goods to human workers to help deliver orders faster...
The push toward automation comes as businesses say they can’t hire warehouse workers fast enough to meet surging online demand for everything from furniture to frozen food in pandemic-disrupted supply chains. The crunch is accelerating the adoption of robots and other technology in a sector that still largely relies on workers pulling carts...
“This is not about taking over your job, it’s about taking care of those jobs we can’t fill,” ...
Logistics-automation companies say demand for their technology has grown during the pandemic as companies look for ways to cope with big swings in volume when workers are scarce and social distancing requirements limit building occupancy.
“Robots are beginning to fill that void,” said Dwight Klappich, a supply-chain research vice president at Gartner Inc. The technology-research firm forecasts that demand for robotic systems that deliver goods to human workers will quadruple through 2023...
“The driver here is not to reduce costs, but simply to serve the customer’s needs. They simply cannot hire.”...
Users say mobile robots and other logistics technology can also boost output and efficiency, helping businesses handle sudden spikes in demand without investing millions of dollars in fixed infrastructure.
XPO Logistics Inc. said its use of robots in warehousing operations increased efficiency by as much as six times in some cases...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
It is already underway.
The Gartner Group VP quoted in this article projects a doubling rate of about one year (starting now), for one particular broad niche.
By the end of the decade, robots will likely be able to perform just about any general manual task that humans can do - often much better, faster and cheaper. By then, factories and warehouses will be emptying out of their current human workforce, and robots will be entering retail and household environments.
Yeah, but “Who Made Who?” :-P
>>Growing numbers of self-driving machines are shuttling clothing and sports equipment down warehouse aisles, pulling bins of groceries, cosmetics and industrial parts from high stacks and handing off goods to human workers to help deliver orders faster...
who else besides Amazon stocks that sort of inventory all in the same warehouse to the same customer?
Robots already automate semiconductor factories and have been doing it for 30 years.
Warehouses are easier to automate as you don’t have to worry about hyper-clean surroundings during maintenance.
I have been saying for a long time that automation and AI will change our world and society drastically. Entry level jobs or other general labor jobs can and will be done by robots and government policy is speeding up this transition.
Along with AI devices like the ones that already replace people like technically trained medical transcriptionists.
A woman related how in her job she had to correctly her and understand foreign born doctors and precisely transcribe the
really arcane words.
She said the bosses brought in new software on a system that actually understands foreign accents (!) and corrects them to transcribe the correct terms. Amazing. She permanently lost her job, she said.
Yep. It was inevitable. But the extended unemployment benefits and the poor work ethics of Millenials gave it all a big jumpstart.
The robots don’t need a coffee break, a toilet break, lunch or supper. You don’t have to worry about a retirement fund for them or complaints about working conditions, or starting a union. They never fail to show up for work or show up late.
With regular maintenance they will probably outlast their human counterparts. Their initial cost may be high, but over time they are much more cost-efficient than people.
Not a lot of fun to work with, though.
Pretty much any kind of inventory can be handled robotically - whatever the industry, from very large to pretty small operations.
Another thing they discussed in the article, is remote equipment operation. A forklift driver can can now remotely unload a truck in another State, and then cutover to another yet State, when a truck arrives there. Kind of like the drone operators who fly Predators over Afghanistan and the Middle East, from outside of Las Vegas.
I, for one, welcome my new Robot Overlords! ;)
Heaven forbid people get off the dole and go to work.
Isn’t there already a robot serving as pResident?
“I have been saying for a long time that automation and AI will change our world and society drastically.”
The technology is now maturing, and rollout is entering rapid growth.
One of the best technology forecasters, Ray Kurzweil, projects that we will have general purpose household robots available, starting in the last few years of this decade.
Special purpose logistics or agricultural robots have already begun rolling out, and driverless cars, trucks, ships and aircraft are not far behind.
When general purpose human equivalents (mobility, dexterity, strength, safety) become available, the really profound social transformation will take place.
I tried to deploy a robot in my workshop. You know, to do the more mundane tasks like sweeping up, etc. For awhile things went great. Then it starting saying, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
This is really creeping me out. And my name isn’t even Dave.
AI is going to displace a lot of white collar work as well - not just manual tasks.
As you point out, this is already well underway.
It took a long time to get AI systems up to human levels of competence - but not long for them to go from as good, to better.
Human error rates are soon going to broadly disqualify them from many tasks, that they currently perform.
You beat me to it.
Plus no phony days off called in and time wasted standing around flirting at the water cooler or the donut table in the break room.
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