In a huge warehouse in Doncaster a small army of Amazon workers are being pushed to their limit from dusk until dawn.
The US giant’s newest employees are being tasked with inhumane jobs like carrying the weight of a car on their backs and criss-crossing the vast distances of the online giant’s warehouse hundreds of times a day. But despite clocking up dozens of miles in a single shift, they can handle it.
The tech giant’s latest intake of staff aren’t humans, but robots, whose landing in the UK has been under a veil of secrecy until now.
The strange, orange, squat objects look more akin to the circular vacuum cleaner robots sold on TV shopping channel QVC than R2D2, but they are now an integral part of Amazon’s workforce in South Yorkshire. Amazon denies their introduction is a reaction to reports of their human workers being overworked and instead is a sign of the company harnessing technology.
While they may not look that impressive, they are eerily advanced in their ability to patrol warehouse floors and appear to use their own free will to swivel on the polished concrete floor.
The US giant’s newest employees are being tasked with inhumane jobs like carrying the weight of a car on their backs and criss-crossing the vast distances of the online giant’s warehouse hundreds of times a day. But despite clocking up dozens of miles in a single shift, they can handle it.
The tech giant’s latest intake of staff aren’t humans, but robots, whose landing in the UK has been under a veil of secrecy until now.
The strange, orange, squat objects look more akin to the circular vacuum cleaner robots sold on TV shopping channel QVC than R2D2, but they are now an integral part of Amazon’s workforce in South Yorkshire. Amazon denies their introduction is a reaction to reports of their human workers being overworked and instead is a sign of the company harnessing technology.
While they may not look that impressive, they are eerily advanced in their ability to patrol warehouse floors and appear to use their own free will to swivel on the polished concrete floor.
The robots are called Kiva, a product of Amazon’s $775m (£531m) takeover of Kiva Associates in 2012 when the US behemoth decided it would have to harness the power of robots to become increasingly efficient.
The machines, which weigh 320lb, are guided by QR codes – the black and white squares which can be read by mobile phones – dotted across the warehouse floors.
These digital patterns send information about their location and the robots receive a command signal, which sends them whirring off to lift and move shelves of items.
They then deliver these stacks to human colleagues who put them into cardboard boxes ready to be shipped.
It’s almost impossible to not anthropomorphise the robots as they shift from appearing like worker ants, marching along in single file, or mice, as they slide out from underneath wooden crates.
“I think lots of people think of them as their co-workers,” quipped Kerry Person, head of Amazon engineering, emphasising that within a few shifts, the humans, or “associates” as Amazon calls them, view the robots as entirely normal.
The machines, which weigh 320lb, are guided by QR codes – the black and white squares which can be read by mobile phones – dotted across the warehouse floors.
These digital patterns send information about their location and the robots receive a command signal, which sends them whirring off to lift and move shelves of items.
They then deliver these stacks to human colleagues who put them into cardboard boxes ready to be shipped.
It’s almost impossible to not anthropomorphise the robots as they shift from appearing like worker ants, marching along in single file, or mice, as they slide out from underneath wooden crates.
“I think lots of people think of them as their co-workers,” quipped Kerry Person, head of Amazon engineering, emphasising that within a few shifts, the humans, or “associates” as Amazon calls them, view the robots as entirely normal.
The Doncaster site is for Amazon’s Pantry service, which allows customers to shop for individual household items, unlike the bulk-buy option in its Grocery division.
Amazon steadfastly refuses to discuss whether it will launch its US Fresh service in the UK, which would mean British shoppers could buy chilled and frozen food from the site, but what tends to happen in America crosses the pond a few years later.
For now, the robots carry stacked shelves of household staples, including everything from toothpaste, kitchen foil, cat food and Dom Perignon.
However, the machines are helping Amazon adapt to changing customer needs as it shifts its battles from price wars with publishers to time wars with other rival retailers. Its need for speed means that the company is entirely focused on reducing the time it takes from when a shopper clicks a button to order, and receiving it.
Amazon steadfastly refuses to discuss whether it will launch its US Fresh service in the UK, which would mean British shoppers could buy chilled and frozen food from the site, but what tends to happen in America crosses the pond a few years later.
For now, the robots carry stacked shelves of household staples, including everything from toothpaste, kitchen foil, cat food and Dom Perignon.
However, the machines are helping Amazon adapt to changing customer needs as it shifts its battles from price wars with publishers to time wars with other rival retailers. Its need for speed means that the company is entirely focused on reducing the time it takes from when a shopper clicks a button to order, and receiving it.
Its ambitious Prime service offers not just same day delivery, but free two-hour delivery windows in certain cities and one-hour slots in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Portsmouth.
“We are focused on reducing our mission time”, Kerry Person, head of Amazon engineering says.
There were reports previously that human workers were judged on their ability to pick a new item within 33 seconds. That number has been refuted, but Person admits that “in general Kiva is significantly faster than an associate”.
Not only do the robots eliminate the need for human pickers to walk miles a day, collecting orders from around the warehouse, but the devices mean that traditional shelf stacking is transformed as the shelves themselves are transported on the back of the robots.
As a result, Amazon can also warehouse more stock, which also lowers the costs of its centres. The Doncaster site has 190 of the orange-wheeled robots which shuffle along a grid system that appears to be as complicated as the M25’s six-lane traffic.
Globally, Amazon has more than 30,000 robots, with the majority in the US and another army of them in Poland.
Amazon’s other UK sites continue to adopt the human picker model, which, it insists, gives people the choice over which role they’d like and whether “they can get their steps in and exercise on the job”.
“There is no question that Kiva offers an improvement in the associate jobs,” says Person. “Having worked in fulfilment myself as a picker, it is a tough job and it is not fit for everyone. Now that more challenging work can be automated.”
The company remains paranoid about allegations of employee hardship and on a recent tour there was an absurd level of focus on the free coffee, vending machines and pool table.
There is also no shortage of inspirational messages, which emblazon the walls in an explicit attempt to defy any accusations the company operates an autocratic state.
“Have backbone,” says one, “Disagree and commit”, “Bias for action” while another illogical message says simply “Are right, a lot”. One so-called Amazonian explains this is the company’s principle that managers should be right most of the time, but not all of the time, “because no one is perfect”. These slogans are all delivered with the level of sincerity that only an American company can achieve.
Amazon argues that the robots have not replaced humans and says there are still as many “associates”, 68, in Doncaster as there were pre-robots.
However, the company admits that its Pantry business has grown significantly as it churns out more orders and the human staff count has not increased. An Amazon spokesman said the company plans to grow Doncaster human employees to 300 by 2018.
Amazon also refuses to disclose how much quicker service is now or how much the robots cost.
The astonishing rate of Amazon’s growth means it is set to create 2,500 new permanent jobs in the UK this year, taking the total workforce to 14,500 by the end of 2016.
The arrival of Kiva robots in Britain comes three months after the World Economic Forum warned that technological advances were pushing us into the “fourth industrial revolution”. Separately a report by Deloitte warned that 11m jobs across the UK economy are at high risk of being automated by 2036.
“We are focused on reducing our mission time”, Kerry Person, head of Amazon engineering says.
There were reports previously that human workers were judged on their ability to pick a new item within 33 seconds. That number has been refuted, but Person admits that “in general Kiva is significantly faster than an associate”.
Not only do the robots eliminate the need for human pickers to walk miles a day, collecting orders from around the warehouse, but the devices mean that traditional shelf stacking is transformed as the shelves themselves are transported on the back of the robots.
As a result, Amazon can also warehouse more stock, which also lowers the costs of its centres. The Doncaster site has 190 of the orange-wheeled robots which shuffle along a grid system that appears to be as complicated as the M25’s six-lane traffic.
Globally, Amazon has more than 30,000 robots, with the majority in the US and another army of them in Poland.
Amazon’s other UK sites continue to adopt the human picker model, which, it insists, gives people the choice over which role they’d like and whether “they can get their steps in and exercise on the job”.
“There is no question that Kiva offers an improvement in the associate jobs,” says Person. “Having worked in fulfilment myself as a picker, it is a tough job and it is not fit for everyone. Now that more challenging work can be automated.”
The company remains paranoid about allegations of employee hardship and on a recent tour there was an absurd level of focus on the free coffee, vending machines and pool table.
There is also no shortage of inspirational messages, which emblazon the walls in an explicit attempt to defy any accusations the company operates an autocratic state.
“Have backbone,” says one, “Disagree and commit”, “Bias for action” while another illogical message says simply “Are right, a lot”. One so-called Amazonian explains this is the company’s principle that managers should be right most of the time, but not all of the time, “because no one is perfect”. These slogans are all delivered with the level of sincerity that only an American company can achieve.
Amazon argues that the robots have not replaced humans and says there are still as many “associates”, 68, in Doncaster as there were pre-robots.
However, the company admits that its Pantry business has grown significantly as it churns out more orders and the human staff count has not increased. An Amazon spokesman said the company plans to grow Doncaster human employees to 300 by 2018.
Amazon also refuses to disclose how much quicker service is now or how much the robots cost.
The astonishing rate of Amazon’s growth means it is set to create 2,500 new permanent jobs in the UK this year, taking the total workforce to 14,500 by the end of 2016.
The arrival of Kiva robots in Britain comes three months after the World Economic Forum warned that technological advances were pushing us into the “fourth industrial revolution”. Separately a report by Deloitte warned that 11m jobs across the UK economy are at high risk of being automated by 2036.
“Humans are quite good at identifying products, which robots find more difficult, whereas robots find it easier to move about. So isn’t it much better that we can introduce robots for those jobs that they can do and keep humans doing what they are better at doing?” Person says.
Amazon is not alone, nor a pioneer in introducing robots. Hotels in Japan have started experimenting with robotic receptionists; Nissan’s car factory in Sunderland is almost entirely automated, while oil companies are increasingly using robots for jobs in unsafe environments.
“Jobs will continue to evolve; 200 years ago the Luddites were taking hammers to fix their weaving equipment. Those jobs are now gone and as society evolves, we will naturally replace jobs”, Person reasons.
The robot revolution is showing no signs of stopping.
Amazon is not alone, nor a pioneer in introducing robots. Hotels in Japan have started experimenting with robotic receptionists; Nissan’s car factory in Sunderland is almost entirely automated, while oil companies are increasingly using robots for jobs in unsafe environments.
“Jobs will continue to evolve; 200 years ago the Luddites were taking hammers to fix their weaving equipment. Those jobs are now gone and as society evolves, we will naturally replace jobs”, Person reasons.
The robot revolution is showing no signs of stopping.
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