Amazon's new robot army deliver goods in warehouses to boost efficiency on Cyber Monday
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A year ago, Amazon.com workers walked for miles scanning aisles in huge warehouses to pick up items ordered by online customers.
But now 15,000 robots have taken over the tiring task to boost efficiency and give workers' legs a break, by criss-crossing the floors of the firm's largest warehouses to deliver heavy stacks of toys, books and other products to employees to pack.
Amazon unveiled its next generation warehouse technology to coincide with Cyber Monday – which is typically the busiest day of the year for online shopping, with UK consumers expected to spend £600 million in 24 hours, which works out at £7,000 a second.
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Around 15,000 Kiva robot drive units (pictured) are working in 10 of Amazon's massive warehouses to boot efficiency. One of the squat robots is seen, foreground, before it moves under a stack of merchandise pods, seen on a tour of one of Amazon's newest distribution centres in Tracy, California
'We pick two to three times faster than we used to,' 34-year-old Amazon worker Rejinaldo Rosales said during a short break from sorting merchandise into bins at Amazon's massive distribution centre in Tracy, California, about 60 miles east of San Francisco. 'It's made the job a lot easier.'
The Seattle-based company now has 109 shipping centres around the globe, 10 of which – including Tracy – has robotic workers.
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The squat orange robots use technology acquired when the company bought robot-maker Kiva Systems in 2012, according to Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president for operations.
Amazon unveiled its next generation warehouse technology to coincide with Cyber Monday – which is typically the busiest day of the year for online shopping, with UK consumers are expected to spend £600million in 24 hours. A Kiva robot is shown moving goods (left) and another robot unloading them (right)
The Tracy centre has 1.2 million square feet of space - the equivalent of 28 football fields – which are tended by 1,500 full-time employees and 3,000 Kiva robots, gliding swiftly and quietly around the warehouse.
The robots navigate by scanning coded stickers on the floor, following digital commands that are beamed wirelessly from a central computer.
Each of the orange machines can slide under and then lift a stack of shelves that's four feet (1.2 metres) wide and holds up to 750 lbs (340kg) of merchandise.
The system uses bar codes to track which items are on each shelf, so a robot can fetch the right shelves for each worker as orders come in.
Because the robots travel underneath, the shelves can be stacked closely together, which means the warehouse can hold more goods, Clark said.
The Tracy centre now holds about 20 million items, representing 3.5 million different products, from bottles of gourmet sauce to high-end headphones, books and video games.
The robots (pictured) navigate by scanning coded stickers on the floor, following digital commands that are beamed wirelessly from a central computer
Each of the orange machines can slide under and then lift a stack of shelves that's four feet (1.2 metres) wide and holds up to 750 lbs (340kg) of merchandise (pictured). Amazon has stressed that the machines are not designed to take the place of its human workers (pictured) but make the job less physically demanding
The Tracy centre (pictured) has 1.2 million square feet of space - the equivalent of 28 football fields – which are tended by 1,500 full-time employees and 3,000 robots, gliding swiftly and quietly around the warehouse
Mr Clark said it can ship 700,000 items in a day, but will hold more and ship more by next year.
The robots will cut the Tracy centre's operating costs by 20 per cent, he said, before quickly adding that they won't eliminate human jobs.
'Our focus is all about building automation that helps people do their jobs better,' he said.
Mr Clark explained that workers are needed for more complex tasks such as shelving, packing and checking for damaged items.
The system takes the complexity of different tasks into account, rather than forcing employees to work at an inhuman pace, he said.
Mr Rosales explained that the robots 'actually adjust to your speed. If you're picking slower, they slow down.'
Amazon has invested heavily in upgrading and expanding its distribution network, adding new technology, opening more shipping centres and hiring 80,000 seasonal workers to meet the coming onslaught of Christmas shopping orders.
The company said it processed orders for 36.8 million items on the Monday after Thanksgiving last year, and it's expecting today to be an even busier 'Cyber Monday' this year.
Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, has said that one day Amazon orders will be delivered by drone, but the technology is not ready yet.
Because the robots travel underneath (pictured), the shelves can be stacked closely together, which means the warehouse can hold more goods
Amazon has invested heavily in upgrading and expanding its distribution network, adding new technology, opening more shipping centres and hiring 80,000 seasonal workers to meet the coming onslaught of Christmas shopping orders. Here, a worker moves pods of merchandise with the help of robots
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