News: Current technology is not enough to run automated warehouses: Amazon

Technology

Current technology is not enough to run automated warehouses: Amazon

According to Scott Anderson, Director of Amazon Robotics Fulfillment, "Technology is at least 10 years away from fully automating the processing of a single order picked by a worker inside a warehouse."
Current technology is not enough to run automated warehouses: Amazon

The current technology is limited and the cognitive abilities of humans are still superior to be able to completely replace jobs in Amazon's warehouse. 

Scott Anderson, Director of Amazon Robotics Fulfillment said, "In the current form, the technology is very limited. The technology is very far from the fully automated workstation that we would need."

While in the long run, the company can benefit from technology for a robot to pick a single product from a bin without damaging other products or picking multiple products at the same time, it seems a far fetched dream currently. 

Although automation has helped Amazon in many ways and currently the company is exploring a variety of technologies to automate the various steps needed to get a package to shoppers, it has dismissed the idea of running a fully automated warehouse in the near future. 

Anderson made all these comments and shared the information on his recent tour to Amazon's Baltimore warehouse. The tour was planned as labour groups and other Amazon critics raised concerns over poor working conditions in its warehouses and for increasingly automating jobs and reducing its dependence on human labour.

However, the company shared that it is not changing the level of productivity at its warehouses to catch up with its recent one-day shipping announcement. But is instead making changes to the transportation and delivery process.

Hence, until the technology becomes more sophisticated and superior, the jobs at warehouses are still safe and the labor has still time to catch up with the disruption and prepare for the distant future. 

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Topics: Technology, #AutomationAndJobs

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