Amazon bets on automation & robotics to improve warehouse efficiency

Amazon is predicted to invest US$25 billion in a new generation of robotics-led warehouses to improve efficiency and delivery times across its retail network.

Amazon hopes this will save significant time as the technology giant continues its automation investment is part of wider artificial intelligence (AI) spending to drive productivity and improve distribution amid rising competition from the likes of Temu, reported the Financial Times.

“We’re seeing today how fruitful this technology is in transforming our everyday,” said Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics. The company plans to “continue to invest” in automation, he added.

Amazon reaps the benefits of automation

Amazon’s Shreveport, LA fulfilment center has already shown the types of savings and enhancements automation can bring. Robots are involved at every stage of fulfillment at the six-month-old, 3 million square foot facility, helping Amazon cut costs by 25 percent. Systems use sensors, cameras and machine learning to process large volumes of data, optimizing both robotic performance and employee interactions.

“We have ten-times the amount of robotics compared to any of our other fulfillment centers,” Brady told NBC News last year. “We don’t have people to lift heavy objects. We don’t want people to take boxes and put them over their head or reach down low. We can have a robotics system do that for our employees.”

Along with cost savings and increased efficiency, robotics has also helped make substantial improvements to safety, lowering accident/incident rates. 

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Driving human-robotics collaboration

Through Amazon’s upscaling program, workers who used to do manual labor jobs are moving into roles that oversee, repair and program the machines. These roles can offer higher rates of pay, according to the firm. By working together, humans and robots are improving speed, efficiency and quality. Brady stated that future will never be fully automated because need to design and program the robots – as well as keep them running. 

“AI has the potential to revolutionize data integration and automation by creating a whole new paradigm of human-machine collaboration,” commented Manoj Chaudhary, CTO of AI integration company Jitterbit.

“This collaboration unlocks a broader spectrum of capabilities through zero-code automation tools,” he added. AI serves as a knowledge alchemist, taking in both general knowledge from its training data and the specific expertise of an organization. “This allows AI to deliver tailor-made solutions that address the unique needs of each business. AI can unearth hidden patterns and insights within an organization’s data, further enriching its knowledge base and driving even more powerful automations.”

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