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Robotics

Robots in Warehouses To Jump 15X Over Next 4 Years (techrepublic.com) 125

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
The worldwide warehouse and logistics robot unit shipments will increase from 40,000 robots in 2016 to 620,000 robots annually by 2021, according to highly reliable numbers from Tractica, which adds that the $1.9 billion market in 2016 is expected to jump a staggering tenfold to an annual $22.4 billion by the end of 2021. From a report on TechRepublic: As a measure of global market value, Tractica also expects the robotic shipments to reach $22.4 billion by the end of 2021, up from an estimated $1.9 billion in 2016. The report, which highlights market drivers and challenges, profiles 75 "emerging industry players," and is divided into sections based on robot type. According to the report, "warehousing and logistics industries are looking for robotics solutions, more than ever before, to remain globally competitive," which will "lead to widespread acceptance and presence of robots in warehouses and logistics operations." To allay fears about lost jobs due to automation, the report authors said they expect that the increase in robots will likely yield new jobs and opportunities for businesses. "The next 5 years will be a period of significant innovation in the space, bringing significant opportunities for established industry players and startups alike," said Manoj Sahi, a research analyst, in the report.
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Robots in Warehouses To Jump 15X Over Next 4 Years More

Robots in Warehouses To Jump 15X Over Next 4 Years

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  • Only 15 times? I can jump even more than that in four years.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by khr ( 708262 )

      Only 15 times? I can jump even more than that in four years.

      Yes, but will you?

  • Anyone read the title and think of robots jumping in the air all at once?

  • Highly reliable numbers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nunya666 ( 4446709 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @10:40AM (#53992549)
    TFS mentions "highly reliable numbers." Since only an HR department would use that terminology, the entire article is assumed to be B.S.

    Next story, please.

    • Re:Highly reliable numbers? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by GLMDesigns ( 2044134 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @10:58AM (#53992687)
      I work with Order Management and Warehouse Management Systems.

      The automation taking place is tremendous. The need for people is dropping fast. I would not be surprised to see a 90%+ drop in human labor. I'm aware of new warehouses opening with 60 people whereas the warehouses they replaced had 180 workers and handled half the inventory and half the volume.

      Conversations I've had leave me thinking that in a few years, when the warehouse expands (to more than twice the current size) they will not need to add more workers.

      In the immediate future (the 3-5 year range) we're seeing warehouses handling 4x the volume with 1/3 the human labor).

      So the warehouses of yesteryear would have needed 180(4) = 720 workers now only need 60 people.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TWX ( 665546 )

        I'm honestly a little surprised that it didn't happen sooner. When I was a kid I got to tour a printing press for a newspaper. The bulk of the heavy lifting was done with robotic carts that would automatically go retrieve fresh rolls of paper based on the consumption rate as the newspapers were printed. The robots were able to retrieve rolls from the paper room without those rolls having to be specifically stacked, the robot could find the paper and could mount it onto the special cradle/cart and take it

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          As specialized as that work is, re-sorting items in a warehouse that are initially sorted into appropriate-sized bins seems like a no-brainer. Worst-case a human has to manually load the bins and then put them onto a conveyor-belt system that finds storage space and parks them, and then when a human fulfills an order the same machine retrieves the correct bins so that the picker can grab what's needed and sort into boxes. In a more highly automated scenario the common bulk items are sorted into bins by mach

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by TWX ( 665546 )

            Heh. I would like to see a defrag process run upon such a warehouse. I expect it would look something like playing Freecell...

            • I expect it would look something like playing Freecell...

              ...unless it was done by humans. Then it would look more like Minesweeper.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by cdrudge ( 68377 )

              For a warehouse like this, "defragmenting" really wouldn't have a meaning.

              In a spinning drive filesystem, locating all the consecutive blocks of a file adjacent to each other can give a performance advantage for reads and possibly writes as the head doesn't have to move for each sector. It's already basically where it needs to be.

              For a warehouse, part 123 doesn't need to be next to 124. The only advantage to having them next to each other is for a human to quickly be able to locate it. A computerized wareh

              • In this context, popular items are better, in that access to them is more efficient, if they are more easily accessed.

                However, popularity is not a stable metric.

                So things that used to be popular but are no longer so would be better moved to a higher effort access, while things that are presently popular would be better moved to, or placed in, more efficiently accessed areas. This should increase efficiency, and is essentially equivalent to defragmenting because item packing based on an associated character

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by TWX ( 665546 )

                  It would probably also behoove whoever is designing this algorithm to consider items purchased together, assuming that the robot is capable of pulling more than one bin at a time, or if pulling multiple bins from a single shelf or tight physical location to feed to a common conveyor belt makes more sense. Thinking of examples like diapers, diaper wipes, baby shampoo, and baby powder.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by fyngyrz ( 762201 )

                    Yes, spot on.

                    • It would probably also behoove whoever is designing this algorithm to consider items purchased together,

                      Seems to me that Amazon - and others - have been doing that for many years now.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by fyngyrz ( 762201 )

                      Certainly seems reasonable. On the other hand, this is the company that completely missed the brass ring WRT the Alexa interface, so it's not like they don't make mistakes... :)

                      [IMHO, first company to put a LAN-competent Alexa-like on the market will win the endgame, and will win double if it actually uses AI instead of canned phrasing.]

            • Heh. I would like to see a defrag process run upon such a warehouse. I expect it would look something like playing Freecell...

              I think actually we're looking at the physical equivalent of a hashtable, With probably MRU pre-fetch on the "cache" storage area.

          • As specialized as that work is, re-sorting items in a warehouse that are initially sorted into appropriate-sized bins seems like a no-brainer. Worst-case a human has to manually load the bins and then put them onto a conveyor-belt system that finds storage space and parks them, and then when a human fulfills an order the same machine retrieves the correct bins so that the picker can grab what's needed and sort into boxes. In a more highly automated scenario the common bulk items are sorted into bins by machine with only human supervision over multiple simultaneous sorting operations, and even most of the retrieval and picking for shipment is automated and multiple packing operations are simultaneously supervised or spot-checked to ensure that they're fulfilled properly.

            Either way, if humans don't need to go into the warehouse storage area then that storage area can be designed with much narrower aisles and much less lighting. It still may be necessary to conduct manual audits of merchandise and obviously maintenance and reconfiguration must be allowed for, but if a warehouse has to shut down quarterly for a day for those tasks then that may still allow for proper worker safety while still making the place run much more efficiently and without as much problem with employee theft or injury.

            Actually, the whole storage is treated as a managed unit. Not only are the shelves narrower (you only need enough space for the bin of products and the picker robot that pulls the bins and brings them out), but they're a lot taller as well. A human powered warehouse has a height limitation because they can only reach so high up. A robotic one can be easily a few storeys high thus making extensive use of the space.

            And there's a "cache" area that holds bins that have popular product so it doesn't have to be fetched from the main storage area all the time.

            In fact, it's all computer controlled. When new product comes in, the receiver tells the computer to send them an empty bin (they all have IDs), and the receiver simply loads the bin up with product, scanning them as they're put on the bin. Once done, the computer moves the bin into the storage area and manages where it'll put the items. All that needs to be done is someone telling the computer what product is being put in and the computer manages it from there.

            This also means the storage is organized somewhat randomly - since the computer knows where all the bins are (and thus, where products are) it doesn't have to arrange the stock by any particular system. In fact, it probably does it by popularity - the more popular items are in locations that can be retrieved quickly while least popular items will require more time to fetch.

            And it's all dynamic.

            So... if the whole thing crashed and the inventory is randomized and unreachable during Christmas time... that would suck.... I can hear it now, "Has anyone found the PS5 bin yet??"

            • So... if the whole thing crashed and the inventory is randomized and unreachable during Christmas time... that would suck.... I can hear it now, "Has anyone found the PS5 bin yet??"

              Just put a physically printed barcode in a visible slot on the front of the bin when a part is assigned to it.

              Now the entire warehouse can be re-indexed if needed by robots running up and down the aisles (or equivalent), just looking at the bins and reporting in to the management system.

              Probably not a bad idea to do this on a fai

              • Probably better to just stick RFID tags on them.

                Occasional inspection is a good idea, though. I'm thinking of cases where a rat is running up the wall just as the robot jams an item into a slot. Ick.

      • If your product is in stackable containers, you can put them on standard skids and have a robot load them into standard racks. You can go one further and stack product on skids so it is both stable and individual units can be removed by robots.

        Orders can be picked by robots, stacked by robots, wrapped by robots. I'm not sure we're ready for loading onto trucks by robots (things just get too messy dealing with LTL when you don't know what's already in the truck).

        Still, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        In the late 80's to early 90's I worked for a company that automated Microfiche retrieval. I went on an install of our software at a credit card company that had 40+ microfiche stations and near 40 people per 8 hour shift that would retrieve a single film from a storage room, look up the credit card statement, hit the print button, and take the printout to a single station for one person to fax out on the 5 different fax machines and return the film in the process.

        We would train people 20 at the time explai

  • Between sending out jobs overseas. Even the expensive high-end ones. And robotics. Tell me.. Where are people to earn money?? ..Will they get a job as "oilers" for robots?? sarcasm.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jiriw ( 444695 )

      It (work) / They (jobs) will be gone. And that should not be a thing to worry about as long as the right politicians are voted into office. Currently governments apply taxes mostly on work and money spent. When those are no longer viable options they'll have to tax something else to keep the nation running. Production and property. Or they'll have to (shudder) privatize. They'll need to distribute enough wealth or risk anarchy. Whether they take the 'left' or the 'right' road.

      Those with creative ideas and t

      • There won't be hobbies in the future if there is no money to fund them.
      • Congratulations jiriw! You are one of the people here who actually think things through. Let me add a bit to what you have said: Hand made things might be a novelty and go for a price. Working with cloth and making a fashion statement with a dress could be a possibility. Also unique pottery designs. Knitting special sweaters. Paintings? And some people are born do-it-yourselfers; they won't mind tilling out in the hot sun to raise some tomatoes or flower groups. How about a person who is good at making mec

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rakarra ( 112805 )

        I foresee a lot of new hobbies in the not too distant future, manual labor being one of them. Maybe some of them will even become sports, so the really talented can earn money going that route. The others will be glad 'modern' humans will never have to do that anymore.

        But manual labor involves risk of injury, you mentioned earlier that due to this risk employers wouldn't even hire people willing to work for free.
        And hobbies require money. They just do. If there are no jobs, then you can't even afford housing, much less hobbies. We'd have to actually attain the mythical/utopian post-money Star Trek society. It was possible in the Star Trek universe due to energy sources that provided basically unlimited resources. In our case though, it'd be the opposite -- without any jo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ranton ( 36917 )

        That's why lowering the minimum wage is a dead-end road. Whether you're a 'commie' or a 'capitalist', or anything in between, changing the minimum wage to anything other than 'if you work for reasonable hours/week you can live off of that, have some small luxuries and support a modes family', will do more harm than good. When minimum wage is too low, you'll have people starving and not enough consumption to keep the economy going. When minimum wage is too high, people working above and beyond what's normal (those that used to earn a higher wage) will stop putting in effort to keep progress going because they can 'earn' the same 'doing nothing'.

        This analysis does not take into account the possibility of the creation of a basic income provided for all adults / households. If work is not necessary to provide a "living wage" then there wouldn't need to be an artificial floor for wages offered by employers. As long as the basic income provides a living wage that is.

      • If you tax property, that means that people who pay those property taxes have to have jobs to pay them. Without those jobs, they can't pay their property taxes. So, out on the street.

        Now, if instead you want to tax non-real-estate property, again people have to have jobs to have money to pay those taxes. Same as they have to have jobs to pay sales and consumption taxes.

        The alternative is to tax production directly - a manufacturer's sales tax. And for those companies that try to dodge it by moving operat

        • You talk like a proletarian.

          If I own Mar-a-Lago, do I have to work to pay the property tax? Of course not! I put up a Trump resort, charge $200K a head membership and presto! Other people end up paying my taxes for me.

          Proles work because that's the only way they can earn enough to pay for their essentials, much less their toys.

          Real 1-percenters don't work to pay for things, they work because they are using money as a score-keeping system relative to their fellow 1-percenters. Or they don't work and live off

          • Except that if nobody but the 0.01% has money, money becomes useless. People will find something else - we always do. Usually that also involves violence. This time around, it may be simpler to just hack into the banks and redistribute the 0.01%'s funds.

            • Well, the stock Libertarian/Conservative view is "go make yourself a job, you lazy bums"!

              The pollyanna view is that "if you automate farms, people will flood to the factories". "If you automate the factories, they'll learn to program". "If you automate (or outsource) programming they'll (mumble, mumble)", because things always work out in this Best of all Possible Worlds.

              Which smacks of supply-side economics plus expecting a long lucky streak to continue forever. And, someone who's more up on the history ca

  • One more low-pay, dangerous, non-unionized job the angry left won't have to finger their worry beads over.

    And now, the hand is quicker than the eye. Watch below!

  • Automation has a purpose. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @10:50AM (#53992629)

    "...To allay fears about lost jobs due to automation, the report authors said they expect that the increase in robots will likely yield new jobs and opportunities for businesses."

    What utter bullshit. There's a reason companies are looking to replace humans with robots, so let's dispel with the illusions about how robots will somehow not impact the job market.

    Jobs will ultimately be lost to automation. It's kind of the entire fucking point.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chubs ( 2470996 )
      Jobs will temporarily be lost to automation. We've been automating people out of work for a very, very long time. Farm equipment automated farm hands out of work. They found jobs in manufacturing. Software automated a lot of secretarial positions and other white collar positions out of work, but that same software led to a new industry that employs a massive number of people in higher paying jobs. When you automate people out of a job, you temporarily displace them. However, that frees up a lot of capital.

      • Re:Automation has a purpose. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @11:19AM (#53992831)

        ...When you automate people out of a job, you temporarily displace them. However, that frees up a lot of capital. And, before you say that the rich greedy people at the top will just pocket all that money, remember that they are rich and greedy and want even more money, so they'll take that money and start new businesses that employ lots of people.

        Well that's a cute fairy tale version of the future. Now let me enlighten you to the reality of today.

        The chasm between the rich greedy people at the top and the other 99.9% of the planet isn't shrinking.

        The automation of yesteryear still left the door open to educating a human, to allow displaced workers to move on to find employment in another field. Automation and AI is now targeting educated jobs, so this next iteration of automation will not be temporary by any means. When most education becomes irrelevant due to the utter lack of employment opportunities, society will start to question the purpose of wasting time or money on higher education, which we are already facing those concerns today, as graduates struggle to escape the "gig" economy to try and find a career.

        Even if automation only removed the lowly jobs out there, it's replacing the employment opportunities that allow humans to climb the proverbial ladder. When you remove the 10 lowest rungs on the ladder of success, tends to make it impossible to climb.

        The rich and greedy may start new businesses, but those businesses will employ automation and AI in order to remain competitive.

        And much like TFS implies, this is going to happen much faster than anyone thinks.

        • Re:Automation has a purpose. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @12:23PM (#53993373)

          The chasm between the rich greedy people at the top and the other 99.9% of the planet isn't shrinking.

          Actually ... it is shrinking. Over the last two decades the people that have done the best are the extremely poor: factory workers in Guangzhou, seamstresses in Bangladesh, coffee farmers in Tanzania. It is "poor people in rich countries" have been the losers, but those people aren't really poor. They are in the 85-95% range, so actually relatively rich by world standards.

          • If poor people in rich countries are losing, then so also should rich people in rick countries. It's great that the world is getting better and all, but it shouldn't be by the sacrifice of one specific demographic.

          • Re:Automation has a purpose. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @01:31PM (#53993899)

            The chasm between the rich greedy people at the top and the other 99.9% of the planet isn't shrinking.

            Actually ... it is shrinking. Over the last two decades the people that have done the best are the extremely poor: factory workers in Guangzhou, seamstresses in Bangladesh, coffee farmers in Tanzania. It is "poor people in rich countries" have been the losers, but those people aren't really poor. They are in the 85-95% range, so actually relatively rich by world standards.

            In 2010, it took 388 people to represent the wealthy elite who owned as much as half of the global population. In 2016, it took only 62.

            In 2015, a new metric was born by the top 1% who owned more than the rest of the world combined.

            I have no idea what metrics you're looking at, but that chasm between the wealthy elite and the rest of us is not shrinking. It's also not displaced by trying to marginalize how some in extreme poverty are now doing "better" by jumping up to mild poverty. Slight improvements are not going to do a damn thing to prevent the inevitable, which is going to be a massive shift in world standards through automation and AI. Once that happens, Welfare 2.0 (UBI) will define the standard poverty line for all.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "so they'll take that money and start new businesses that employ lots of people"

        No, they'll throw it in the stock market and/or embezzle it. Starting large businesses that employ lots of people isn't worth the risk anymore.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rakarra ( 112805 )

        Jobs will temporarily be lost to automation. We've been automating people out of work for a very, very long time

        We're very good at cutting costs through automation, but we're extremely bad at creating those new jobs. Instead, larger and larger percentages of those gains have gone to the top.

        And, before you say that the rich greedy people at the top will just pocket all that money, remember that they are rich and greedy and want even more money, so they'll take that money and start new businesses that employ lots of people. I know that sounds an awful lot like trickle-down economics (probably because it is) [...]

        I know that's wonderful business school theory, but we have thirty-plus years of proof that Trickle Down Economics is bullshit, a self-serving argument to fleece the population while convincing them that the fleecing is good, and that someday, yes someday they'll benefit.

      • Even to the degree you are correct, you are ignoring the time it takes.

        Many of the luddites died of starvation and exposure. They were correct about how bad automation would be. Owners would not train them on the new equipment.

        It was the generation AFTER them who did okay in factories.

        It could be 10 to 40 years before we adapt to the automation and people are employed again. That's going to indicate a period of civil unrest and violence. And that's EVEN if you give them money to survive. Many people w

      • "remember that they are rich and greedy and want even more money, so they'll take that money and start new businesses that employ lots of people"

        You have assumed that rich and greedy people who want more money understand that "take that money and start new businesses that employ lots of people" is how capitalism works.

  • Jumping robots in a warehouse (Score:4, Informative)

    by GuB-42 ( 2483988 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2017 @11:01AM (#53992701)

    This is a robot jumping in a warehouse : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (jumps are at the end of the video)

  • Chris Cross gonna make ya...

    >> Robots in Warehouses Gonna Jump , Jump
  • We want robots to roll along and stack stuff, and retrieve stuff. A robot that jumps? Useless. That too something that takes 4 years to jump 15 times? More than 3 months to perform one jump? Totally useless machine.

  • Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
    For doing the jobs nobody wants to

  • Maybe they can put themselves out of business too!

  • Robots in Warehouses To Jump 15X Over Next 4 Years

    Pah. I can jump 15 times in 4 minutes. Well, maybe 10.

  • If you're moving full pallets of product only, a fleet of robots would probably be better. If your volumes and product sizes vary by order, humans are going to be better.

    On of our warehouses tried a robotic system to put product away and retrieve it when needed. It sucks, it's slow, it's costly, and it's always breaking down. I know technology moves at a quick pace but I haven't seen anything close to matching efficiency of a human operator.

  • I write warehouse control systems for some of the world's biggest automated warehouses. There's very little in use that meets the colloquial usage of 'robot'. The shuttle ASRS systems mentioned are machines that technically fulfil the robot criteria, but you wouldn't look at one and call it a robot. The stuff that does look like a robot, the ROI just doesn't seem to be there just yet.

    This is one area where Europe leads America still. In Europe, higher costs for land and unskilled labour mean logistics c

    • Look at all the robots in car manufacturing. Just because a welding robot doesn't look like a human doesn't mean it isn't better than a human, despite the lack of mobility. And if mobility is needed, someone will build it for a price.

      Robots are showing up everywhere. They're now doing the cutting for cataract surgery [montrealgazette.com] because they can do it better than a trained specialist surgeon. How long before they do the rest of the surgery?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nasch ( 598556 )

      There's very little in use that meets the colloquial usage of 'robot'. The shuttle ASRS systems mentioned are machines that technically fulfil the robot criteria, but you wouldn't look at one and call it a robot.

      You mean android? Most robots don't look like people, if that's what you're getting at. I think people generally recognize Roombas as robots, and they're not anthropomorphic.

      • What I mean by robot is a mobile machine with some sort of limb like manipulator.

        The ASRS is a fixed crane style device with vertical elevators and horizontal shuttles. A box goes in and is pushed by hydraulic arms onto elevator, onto shuttle, into storage, and the reverse sequence when it's needed again, directed by software autonomously, and guided by photocells for positioning.

        I would consider a Roomba as a robot, but not as ASRS. I would refer to an automated crane for sure as a 'robotic' crane, but n

  • I'm going to laugh when everybody finds out they are out of a job, because most next generation robots can repair themselves! Now what are you going to do? Have a robot for a boss?

  • Amazon is already working on eliminating the next human step in the chain. Humans picking packing the boxes.

    Right now the robot shelf brings the product to the human who picks it and packs the box. There are tens of thousands of these across the country. They'll vanish quickly when the pick item and pack box step is roboticized.

  • Obviously the human operated forklifts used in warehouses will have very little demand in the near future. That probably means that forklifts designed to work on delivery or job sites will surely see a huge increase in prise.

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