Last month Amazon unveiled ‘Sparrow’ at the Delivering the Future conference in the US, where the e-commerce giant showcased new robotics, transportation and last-mile delivery technologies.
Sparrow is a robotic arm that can pick millions of items of varying shapes and sizes, using computer vision and artificial intelligence to move products before they’re packaged. Previously, robots were able to pick up and move boxes of a uniform size, but more complex picks remained the domain of human beings.
This constant development of AI technology, from hyperautomation to advanced analytics, robots and cobots, continues to drive the debate as to whether robots are friend or foe when it comes to human jobs in the warehouse.
Amazon has said that Sparrow will take on repetitive tasks, freeing employees to focus on other aspects of their work, and indeed since the introduction of robots, which look and operate like self-driving shelves, humans have been saved the daily walk of 9 miles or more to fulfil the endless orders generated by the e-commerce economy.
Arguably, ongoing staff shortages in the industry, along with increasing customer demands for rapid delivery, means that automation is critical, but how do we keep our operations human – and do we need to? The future of work is not about humans being replaced by robots. Rather, it is about people learning to work alongside smart, automated technology that will enhance our capabilities and customer services while allowing us to focus on skills that are uniquely human.
Robots have been part of the manufacturing environment since the mid-20th century, carrying out routine, manual assembly work on production lines. What makes today’s robots different is that they can work in a way that is truly autonomous, without direct control or input from humans. This is because they are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) that uses machine learning to enable them to continuously improve performance. However, robots still need to be programmed and maintained by humans, so actually more – and different – roles for people have been generated by the rise of robots.
UKWA was fortunate enough to visit Amazon’s warehouses recently, and they offer great examples of humans working alongside robots. The robots’ job is to bring items to human pickers so they can be packaged and labelled for dispatch. They do this by moving entire shelving units and are programmed to watch out for humans so they will not collide and cause accidents. While the existing robots are limited to working in certain designated areas, we understand a newer model is currently being trialled, that will be able to safely navigate anywhere on the factory floor.
Amazon says that since it introduced robots to its warehouses in 2012, it has created over a million human jobs. So, although the future of our industry may depend on artificial intelligence and automation, for the time being at least, humans working hand-in-hand with robots will remain at its heart.
Clare Bottle
UKWA, CEO
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