Disrupting Logistics by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030610937
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

1 Introduction

When thinking about the smart warehouse of the future, many imagine a dark warehouse where robots have dominion and humans are nowhere to be seen. While this is one possible scenario, a more likely (and desirable) one is a future of optimal human–robot collaboration.

As automation is already prevalent in many large facilities, this future may sound surprisingly conservative. There are already many examples of human–robot collaboration in warehouses, some of which I will expand on in this chapter. The smart warehouse of the future will leverage the best of robotics technology to perform tasks that are dull, dangerous, distant, or difficult, while utilizing the best of human ability to act on insights and improve processes.

While this future may sound similar to what exists today, there is a still a long way to go to achieve optimal human–robot collaboration. In today’s warehouses and fulfillment centers, human employees are still executing on many dull and dangerous tasks. For example, inventory management today is largely performed manually by employees, aided by a barcode scanner (or in some cases pen and paper) and a scissor lift. This task is dangerous as it is often performed at heights up to 40 feet. It is also poorly suited to human employees as it involves highly repetitive motions that lead to worker fatigue and can result in repetitive stress injuries. Finally, it can lead to retention issues as these tasks are dull and unfulfilling for humans to perform.

As a cofounder and chief architect of Kiva Systems, now Amazon Robotics, and founder and CEO of Verity, the world leader in autonomous indoor drone systems, I have seen how human–robot collaboration can create more efficient, productive, and safer warehouses. When we enable humans and robots to each leverage their intrinsic strengths, people are freed to accomplish tasks involving dexterity, creativity, and ambiguous decision making, and robots can be assigned tasks that are intrinsically dangerous, dull, distant, and difficult.

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