Amazon is experimenting with incorporating a robot into its warehouses, with the aim of automating some of the more repetitive processes.
Named Digit, the two-legged ârâobot can pick up and lift items. and is first tasked with moving empty tote boxes.
It was developed by Oregon-based start-up Agility Robotics with backing from Amazon. Digit can walk forwards, backwards, and sideways, as well as crouch, and stands 5ft 9in (175cm) tall. It can carry up to 35lb (16kg).
While a robot in the workplace might at first seem like a unique new colleague, it has also raised concerns for Amazon's 1.5 million-strong workforce around the globe.
Indeed, Tye Brady, the chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, acknowledged that the integration of robots will render some jobs redundant but also create new ones. He maintained that humans are “irreplaceable” in Amazon's operations.
This would suggest that humans will no longer have to take on menial, repetitive tasks, such as moving empty containers, that humanoid robots like Digit are designed for. However, this doesn't mean that there will ever be fully automated warehouses – quite the opposite.
Speaking at a media event at an Amazon facility in Seattle as reported by the Guardian, Brady stated that "there’s not any part of me that thinks [a fully-automated warehouse] would ever be a reality.
“People are so central to the fulfilment process; the ability to think at a higher level, the ability to diagnose problems," he continued. “We will always need people… I’ve never been around an automated system that works 100 per cent of the time. I don’t think you have as well.”
In a blog post, Amazon outlined plans for Digit to work “in spaces and corners of warehouses in novel ways" and highlighted the potential to "scale a mobile-manipulator solution... which can work collaboratively with employees."
At the same time, the company announced the deployment of a robotic system called Sequoia at one of its Houston warehouses, with the aim of completing deliveries faster.
The system can help to identify and store inventory 75 per cent quicker, reducing the processing time of orders by as much as 25 per cent.
“Collaborative robotics involves people," Brady told those attending the Seattle media event. "How can we have people be the stars, the spotlight, the centre of the show, when it comes to the jobs that we have to do?
“When we do our job really, really well, our robotic systems just kind of blend into the background to become ubiquitous. You don’t talk about your dishwasher too much in your kitchen. It’s an amazing robot. It’s such a great robot that I don’t even call it a robot.”
