Warehouse robots increase productivity
The little wheeled bots bring products to shipping clerks, who say they like the assistance. Online retailer Zappos.com is one of several companies using them to get orders out faster. Sally Herships reports.
A warehouse robot carrying orders (www.kivasystems.com)
Links
- Video demonstration of warehouse robots.
Video demonstration of warehouse robots. - Kiva Systems Web site
Kiva Systems Web site
Robots hauling packages for shipping.
TEXT OF STORY
Renita Jablonski: The Labor Department will release this morning its weekly numbers on new claims for unemployment. Finding a job right now isn't easy. There's the economy, of course, and also in the mix, more workers that don't take breaks. Online shoe retailer Zappos just brought in a new crew to help cut costs by getting orders out the door faster. Walgreens and Staples employ a similar bunch. Sally Herships has more.
Sally Herships: [Beeps and scanning sounds in a warehouse] Everyday, Michelle Gill ships thousands of orders from Zappos' warehouse in Kentucky. She has some new colleagues. They zip back and forth in the stockroom bringing Gill the exact items she needs. And they never stop for coffee breaks. That's because the new guys? They're robots. Gill says she loves working with them.
Michelle Gill: ... Because they bring the work to me instead of me having to go get the work. I'm less tired at the end of the day. But I still am getting much more work done.
Made by Kiva Systems the orange bots look sort of like industrial-sized vacuum cleaners, but without the hose. They're battery operated and only 18 inches high. And they've got wheels. They're designed to be high-tech "go-fors." Kiva spokesman Mitch Rosenberg:
Mitch Rosenberg: Everything you buy, everything spends time in at least one and usually many warehouses before it reaches you.
So cutting costs at the warehouse level could have wide-reaching effects. Current systems for moving packages use big, heavy machines that are bolted down, like giant dry-cleaning carousels. But the robots are flexible. They navigate by scanning directional information from adhesive strips on the floor of the warehouse. Making changes is easy -- just move the shelves and stickers.
Craig Adkins: It uses between 40 and 50 percent as much energy as typical systems do.
Craig Adkins runs the Zappos warehouse. He says the part of the building where the robots work doesn't need light or heat.
Adkins: So we save a lot of money on electricity because of all that.
But people are just more expensive. They need climate control. So will robots take their jobs? Adkins says no.
Adkins: My fear is not laying people off, my fear is how are we going to hire enough people to keep this place growing.
And how do the human workers like having the robots around?
Adkins: They love it. So, it's like you get a brand new car, which one you want to drive? Your new one or your old one.
For now, man and machine seem happy side by side.
I'm Sally Herships for Marketplace.
Comments
Comment | Refresh
From Las Vegas, NV, 09/11/2008
Hi, not only am I an avid listener to Marketplace, I am also a Zappos employee. I just want to share that this example of ingenuity is just one out of a great many examples of hwo Zappos does business. I am in my late twenties and am currently in college. I have worked for a couple Fortune 250 companies and I hope to never, EVER leave Zappos. I hope to reture with this company. I have never felt more at home in an organization. Thank you.
From West Linn, OR, 09/11/2008
We own every robot that Irobot makes except the one for the pool (no pool, no need, but if I had a pool, I'd be all over it!). They are time savers, they work well, and our family is rapidly becoming a robot fanatic. I think it businesses can employ them and increase productivity - great! Now if I could get a robot that does the laundry - life would be wonderful!
Julie Parrish, hotcouponworld.com
From CA, 09/11/2008
The headline was about robot vacuum cleaners. If you have that info I'd like it sent to me, please.
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