one of the issues with using robots to pack boxes is you can only assign 1 robot to one product. You can’t use the same robot to pack potato chips and boxes of cat litter. It’ll either crush the chips or not be able to pick up the box.
Same if the same SKU has two different packaging options: bag and box.
They already have, IIRC, 2 warehouses that are entirely robotic (they are testing facilities for a full robotic workforce) except for the humans that perform maintenance on said robots. They have the means to generalize the packing robots. But it’s more expensive than a person still, as well as there still being some bugs in their specific system.
Why would they have to change anything about suppliers or shipping lanes? It’s the same products being put into the same boxes, but by machines and not human hands. 🤨
If it cost less to use machines to pack those boxes, you know they would be using machines and not people.
one of the issues with using robots to pack boxes is you can only assign 1 robot to one product. You can’t use the same robot to pack potato chips and boxes of cat litter. It’ll either crush the chips or not be able to pick up the box.
Same if the same SKU has two different packaging options: bag and box.
They already have, IIRC, 2 warehouses that are entirely robotic (they are testing facilities for a full robotic workforce) except for the humans that perform maintenance on said robots. They have the means to generalize the packing robots. But it’s more expensive than a person still, as well as there still being some bugs in their specific system.
understood, but that does require further cooperation higher up the supply chain. It’s harder to change suppliers or shipping lanes I imagine.
Why would they have to change anything about suppliers or shipping lanes? It’s the same products being put into the same boxes, but by machines and not human hands. 🤨