At the beginning of last year, when the first robot appeared at the FedEx Transportation Center in North Carolina, the tobacco production center, discussions about the 'dismissal notice' had already begun.
First, FedEx's first large-scale use of robots
Since its opening in 2011, workers have been driving 'tow carts' to transport large and irregular goods on this 630,000-square-foot cargo warehouse.
Their first robotic colleagues kept goods in the warehouse and they plotted a three-dimensional digital map. A few months later, three other robots were added. Their nicknames were 'lucky' and 'dust'. 'Ned German' - its name is a tribute to the movie "Three Friends" - these robots use maps to work.
In March of this year, two other members, Jefe and El Guapo, also joined the robot team. The autopilot car honks the horn, turns on the warning light, walks through the logistics center, and is flanked by about 20 drags that still require the human driver to control. This is the first large-scale deployment of mobile robots in the Federal Express Center.
The robot team is part of the automation trend in the logistics industry and has an impact on the transportation and online retail sectors. Amazon and our e-commerce shopping habits are important reasons for its change.
In 2012, Amazon acquired a robot company called Kiva. Since then, Amazon has distributed Kiva's robots to more than 210 logistics distribution centers and packaging sorting centers in the Amazon logistics network. Now, many of Amazon's cooperation Partners and competitors are moving in this direction, including large shipping and logistics companies like FedEx and DHL.
Figure: The robot's tug shuttles through the Federal Express warehouse in North Carolina. Five of these machines have been working with humans and the company plans to expand the use of robots in the coming months.
However, what happens at the FedEx Center may surprise those who are worried about being replaced by smart machines: The robot may replace your character, but it does not necessarily steal your job. Yes, the use of the robot can be immediate Instead of some jobs, in time, they will replace the role of about 1300 employees in 25 jobs. However, this logistics center creates about 100 new jobs every year - and robots are the main force of the labor force and it still seems to be a distant future. .
2. Everyone has a job. Humans fight with robots
'Everyone will have a job,' said Gallen Steele, senior manager in charge of the warehouse. 'It may be in a different place.' 'As people make shopping online easier, like car tires, Large items such as canoes and coffins account for a growing percentage of parcels at FedEx's distribution centers, said Ted Deger, head of operations technology at FedEx Ground Network. The logistics network includes 35 shipping centers in the United States and Canada, North Carolina logistics centers are also among them. These big and heavy items can not be placed on the conveyor belt, which is why the need for robots. These robots cost thousands of dollars, by Made by Vecna, Massachusetts.
Figure: A control center located within the Federal Express Delivery Center in North Carolina. The logistics center has always had a high degree of automation, and now robots have joined in.
Canasville is home to the Federal Express Center, located in central Piedmont, North Carolina. Here is the plateau between the Eastern Coast Lowlands and the Western Mountains, once known as the 'Tobacco Road'. In the 20th century, here Emergence of textile and garment manufacturing.
However, with the increase in the degree of automation within the factory and the shift of textile work to overseas factories, the local economy has begun to decline. Andrew Broad said: 'The rest of the world is generally prosperous. The situation here is another picture.' He is a senior fellow at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro and is responsible for tracking the local economic situation. The local unemployment rate is 4.6%, slightly higher than the national unemployment rate of 4.1%. Broad estimates that FedEx will be in 2011. Opened a distribution center in the year, such as the construction of such a distribution center can generate a kind of help, create up to 120,000 jobs, most of which have flowed to workers without high school education.
Steele was the manager of FedEx's factory in Canasville. When he saw the first Vecna robot, he did not think he would receive a notice of dismissal. 'People think this will steal their job,' Tyre said at the logistics center Monday morning, 'But as time goes by, they realize that this is not the case.'
But these concerns are not unfounded. In a recent report, the McKinsey Global Institute, a commercial research organization, predicted that by the year 2030, due to technology-driven automation, approximately one-third of workers in the United States will have to change jobs. McKinsey Partners Man Chui Sai On said: 'People underestimated the time needed for this situation.' Workers who used to spend a part of their time dragging carts may spend more time moving boxes to trailers or stacking boxes In transport trucks, it is shipped to all parts of the country. However, Steele stated that, overall, the labor force in the logistics center will grow rather than shrink.
For Steele, an employee who has worked at FedEx for 24 years, this is just a step toward greater, long-term and slow automation. This process took automatic scanners decades ago. The declaration of the use of auto classifiers begins.
The North Carolina Center has been highly automated. More than 80% of parcels are automatically sorted by conveyor belts, scanners, and classifier systems that do not require manual labor. When a full-loaded truck arrives, workers will be bulky. Put on the trailer connected to the robot. Once these trailers are full, they push a button and they will send the trailer. The robot is equipped with laser sensors, cameras and other navigation tools, when people or other vehicles are blocking the road, The robots will stop. In some cases, they will even choose other routes to go.
'Everyone will have a job,' said Galen Steele, the senior manager responsible for the warehouse. 'It may be in a different place.' But most of the work in this workshop still requires human agility. Modern robots are not yet agile enough to unload trucks filled with random-sized boxes, or to mount trucks on trucks on the other side of the hub. 'People are very good at dealing with different types of packages, and they are very good at taking these things. Stuck into the cramped space,' said Dave Clarke, who is responsible for Amazon's robotics work. 'Today's machines can't keep pace with humans.'
Third, Amazon sets new standards for logistics and distribution, and related companies are closely following
However, these companies will continue to do their best to automate this process. The online retail and shipping market continues to grow, Amazon has set new standards for fast and cheap distribution, and everyone else must keep up. This means more transportation centers And more workers, that is, machines and humans. In areas with low unemployment, the demand for automation is particularly urgent. RKLogstics is a small company operating freight warehouses in Former, California. The company has three mobile robots. There was a problem with hiring. There was a serious shortage of available labor resources - the local unemployment rate was about 2.7% - and it was difficult to keep up with Amazon's pay levels in the nearby Tracy City. 'We have always had 30 The position is short of people,' said company president Rock Magnan.
The desire for companies to rely on robots remains strong. 'FedEx Express has been exploring the issue of robots using robots on cement floors outside their centers, where workers use forklifts and other vehicles to deliver goods,' said Denzel.
On the second floor of the North Carolina Logistics Center, most of the parcels are on conveyor belts. The company is preparing to install a system that can automatically identify packages that require special handling. In the past, this work also required specialized worker.
After testing five Vecna robots in the past few months, FedEx said that it will begin testing 20 new robots to replace all current tractors. Then, it may extend this project to other centers across the country. DHL is After moving the mobile robots from two start-up companies, Locus and Fetch, to two small centers in its global logistics center, it has reached a similar level.
With the start of the six-year plan, Amazon's development has deepened. Clarke said that the company has deployed more than 100,000 Kiva robots in 26 sorting centers in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. There are also about 30 A robot arm built by an outside company is helping to transport standard containers to some logistics centers. But even inside Amazon, the demand for artificial labor is growing much faster than the demand for robotic labor. Since the acquisition of Kiva, and deployment After the first batch of robots, the number of employees in Amazon has increased by 300,000. Clarke said: 'The biggest problem is the lack of labor, I do not think this situation will change.'