Amazon is Rolling Out Machines To Automate Boxing Up Customer Orders (reuters.com) 108
Amazon is rolling out machines to automate a job held by thousands of its workers: boxing up customer orders. From a report: The company started adding technology to a handful of warehouses in recent years, which scans goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelopes them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item, two people who worked on the project told Reuters. Amazon has considered installing two machines at dozens more warehouses, removing at least 24 roles at each one, these people said. These facilities typically employ more than 2,000 people. That would amount to more than 1,300 cuts across 55 U.S. fulfillment centers for standard-sized inventory. Amazon would expect to recover the costs in under two years, at $1 million per machine plus operational expenses, they said. The plan, previously unreported, shows how Amazon is pushing to reduce labor and boost profits as automation of the most common warehouse task -- picking up an item -- is still beyond its reach.
In my mind (Score:1)
Re:In my mind (Score:4, Informative)
I envision a large machine with all sorts of items entering from the right onto a conveyor at a furious pace, and the machine shitting out a randomly sized box every couple of seconds
It is not like that at all. If you ever visit an Amazon warehouse, you will be surprised at how human-oriented the process is. They have robots that pick up entire shelves [youtube.com] and move them closer to the picker, but the items are still picked off the shelf by a human.
TFA describes how they are automating boxing. Really? That wasn't done a decade ago? How hard it it to put some products in a frick'n box and tape it shut?
Re:In my mind (Score:4, Interesting)
TFA describes how they are automating boxing. Really? That wasn't done a decade ago? How hard it it to put some products in a frick'n box and tape it shut?
Apparently harder than we think, or it would have already been automated long ago.
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TFA describes how they are automating boxing. Really? That wasn't done a decade ago? How hard it it to put some products in a frick'n box and tape it shut?
Years ago they automated most of it:
* The automation tells the human what box to use
* The automation spits out the "fill" (those air sacks) for the difference in volume of the box and the items
* The automation spits out the right length of tape, and the SPU sticker, and any hazmat stickers.
* The human just assembles all that.
* Printing and applying the mailing label (and in some cases closing and taping the box) and dumping it into the right place by zip code is done further down the line, and is fully auto
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* The automation tells the human what box to use
It doesn't do a good job. Most boxes I receive are at least twice the size they need to be.
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You assume unlimited box choice. In fact, the "right sized" box was used up by that packer 20 minutes ago, and the guy hadn't come by yet to replenish that box size. The guy packing doesn't walk anywhere to get a box, too unoptimized.
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The items are of different sizes, weights, etc. Then there is the problem of fitting more than a single item into a box to minimize shipping costs. It's not an easy problem to solve.
After Bezos and his ilk have removed all the lower paid jobs, we'll all have higher paid jobs and able to afford his tat. However, in this dystopian future, people will also have devices to manufacture common stuff at home, and they won't bother buying anything from Amazon. By that time, Bezos will have be living on his cloud se
Your dream or someone else's (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone *MUST* wake up at 05:00 AM, drink their coffee and then work hard all day, every day, for somebody else.
Well if you aren't busy working on making your dreams a reality then you are going to be busy working on someone else's dreams. Make your choice.
Re: Your dream or someone else's (Score:4, Interesting)
24 FTEs eliminated!
No jobs are being eliminated. Amazon received subsidies from state and local governments for "creating jobs" and will lose those subsides if they cut jobs. So the former packers will be redeployed to other positions.
There's still job losses (Score:4, Insightful)
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Companies don't hire to create demand, they hire to meet demand.
Maybe but that does not invalidate the job creator narrative at all.
There might be no demand for widgets at $10,000 a widget for example. It might cost that much to make a widget because its a bespoke process. However a company might identify that there would be demand for millions of widgets at $100. They might also determine that with the right capital investments such as a purpose built widget press, finishing lines, optimization around the input materials etc they could profitably sell widgets at $
Re:There's still job losses (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon can only claim that automation won't take jobs for another 10 years because they expect their business to increase fast enough to counter their efficiency gains.
But that does not count the jobs lost at other employers due to Amazon using their efficiency gains to increase business.
The effect of automation must be measured across industry to avoid these inaccuracies. Some would say that the production of the automation equipment offset that to a degree, but often that equipment is an import - so limiting the measurement to American jobs could lose that offset.
Re:Your dream or someone else's (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if you aren't busy working on making your dreams a reality then you are going to be busy working on someone else's dreams. Make your choice.
At 5AM I choose to dream the dream. Literally. Trying to make it real starts at 9 at the earliest.
Dreams don't wait (Score:1)
At 5AM I choose to dream the dream. Literally. Trying to make it real starts at 9 at the earliest.
Some dreams don't wait for you to get your lazy butt out of bed.
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Well if you aren't busy working on making your dreams a reality then you are going to be busy working on someone else's dreams. Make your choice.
There is a third option. Some organizations involve their employees and share in the rewards. A shared dream and shared success.
You don't have to own the company (Score:2)
There is a third option. Some organizations involve their employees and share in the rewards. A shared dream and shared success.
That is not a third option. If the employee's dream is to do what you describe then it is their dream. If it isn't then it is someone else's dream. The options are binary. There is no third option. You don't have to own the company for working there and building something to be your dream. People who play professional sports are (often) living a dream but they don't own the team they play for. Dreams come in many sizes and forms. If you aren't working on one of yours then de-facto you are working on
My Last Amazon Shipment (Score:3)
Some bottled cleaning fluid. I received a padded envelope that wasn't sufficient to hold the weight of the cleaning fluid bottle. By the time it got to me, the item had fallen out of the envelope. The envelope was completely empty, no product and not even an invoice. Just a completely empty envelope. Not really much of a surprise. I'm speculating the robots won't do much of a better job of packaging than the people.
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My favorites are when they package a heavy, but still somewhat breakable item completely at the bottom and to one side of the box, and fill the rest of the box with packing so that two (possibly three) sides are essentially unprotected. Hint to Amazon - you're supposed to put packing *completely around* the item.
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That's standard operating procedure at some fulfillment centers. Put the item into the box, fill with dunnage, and then tape it up. Job complete!
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That fill is not seen as padding. It's just there to fill the box and keep it from being crushed so easily. Amazon never adds any actual padding to anything they ship - it's just not part of their process. Any padding needed for shipping is supposed to be within the product box, not the shipping box. Sadly, it doesn't always work out that way.
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The difference is that the robot packer will learn from these failures.
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Nope - nobody ever learns, since the failed packaged item doesn't come back to the person/robot so it can learn from it. It is an open loop.
Unless the customer accepts the package as it is of course they keep track of delivery issues. However, one packager probably won't pack enough of one item that it's worth correcting them individually and it's probably not common enough to expand the training program. Tweak an algorithm and do A/B testing? That's not much of a cost. And with the volume of data Amazon has I expect they have a fair idea of not only the direct replacement cost but also the annoyance/disappointment cost, how's your purchase his
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Then you get the opposite extreme, a giant box with masses of space filler and padding, and a ball point pen at the bottom.
Humans don't have time to do proper packaging, and robots aren't smart enough.
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Then you get the opposite extreme, a giant box with masses of space filler and padding, and a ball point pen at the bottom.
Humans don't have time to do proper packaging, and robots aren't smart enough.
Having worked in a warehouse packing boxes, I suspect when stuff like that happens it's more of a "They ran out of smaller boxes at that warehouse" kind of situation. You can either keep the line moving by wasting larger boxes, or shut the place down till the truck shows up. It literally takes 5 time larger to pack a large box than a padded mailer. If a worker continuously chose the unnecessarily large box because of laziness (or malice, or any other excuse beyond "we don't have any small boxes") they wo
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Amazon (like other retailers) is not interested in making sure your item gets to you in absolutely perfect shape. They are interested in minimizing total cost. If they can save a few pennies per package at the cost of having to re-ship some fraction of packages, well, that's just an optimization problem that has a pretty obvious outcome where they might lose money on an individual sale here and there, but have globally improved profit. They key insight is that they sell things for which there is always a
Couldn't be worse than today, could it? (Score:2)
Will automation make that better?
With Prime at least I'm getting "free" shipping. Unlike some eBay items where I might have to pay $20-30 for FedEx for some small item that could be mailed for $4. I try to skip those merchants when I can.
Re:Couldn't be worse than today, could it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You have always paid the same amount for shipping. Amazon just hides the cost. EBay sellers would try to raise the price of the actual product by padding the shipping.
The wrong end (Score:2)
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Have you not heard of Alexa?
Today: Joke with Alexa, order something explicitly. Ten years in the future: "Hey Alexa, I had a hard day at work and you've still replaced all my human friends" "Ordering you a six pack buddy"
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Have you not seen the dash buttons?
Have you not gotten the "We found something you might like" texts/emails?
Have you not seen how one can subscribe to get things sent at regular intervals?
At last! (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally! We can get rid of all those jobs people have been bitching about. The human condition improves!
I am ready for my downmod, Mr. DeMille
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Finally! We can get rid of all those jobs people have been bitching about. The human condition improves!
I am ready for my downmod, Mr. DeMille
Well, it's not going to stop happening.
People aren't going to stop taking the train so that horse grooms can get their jobs back.
I don't know what the solution is, but "don't do that!" isn't it.
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Well, at least some of the remaining people. Say the ones in upper management.
When money is being distributed, those who control the distribution have a great effect of how much each recipient gets.
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Perhaps upper management and the executive levels is where the automation should happen. Can you imagine Amazon's corporate HQ being populated by a bunch of Uniblabs. That would actually be pretty freaking hilarious. The mental imagery...
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Doctor Who Kerblam! (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3)
I worked in an Amazon sorting center. (Score:3)
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Did you get stock grants?
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Keep whining losers! lol (Score:1)
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Odd, I go to In and Out (simple burger place in southern california) and they pretty nail my order every time. I even ask them to not include certain toppings and they never screw up.
In fact, most the time when I go to fast food, they do in fact get my order correct. Very few times can I actually recall them screwing it up. You must live in a worse place then I do and I really thought California took the cake for "state filled with dumb people". Just look at our politicians and there nutter ideas.
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