Amazon has announced a new fulfillment center design that features even more robotics.
Lots and lots of robotics.
Supply Chain Digest Says... |
|
|
According to a company blog post last week, Amazon’s newest fulfillment center, located in Shreveport, Louisiana, has deployed 10 times more robots than previous FC design.
In fact, Amazon said its latest generation FC design will utilize eight different types of robotics.
The blog says Amazon has “built and scaled the world’s largest fleet of industrial robotics that ease tasks for employees and improve operational safety while creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs along the way.”
It adds that the new design “transforms the way we will work and sets a new standard for efficiencies in the industry.”
The Shreveport FC spans five floors and more than 3 million square feet, equivalent to 55 football fields, making it one of Amazon's largest sites.
And there will be some human workers too, about 2,500 of them once it’s fully ramped up.
With the eight types of robots being used at FC, Amazon says that for the first time, it has introduced technology solutions in all key production areas and processes at the site.
That means FC workers will work alongside the growing fleet of robotic systems seamlessly in a way that wasn’t possible previously.
Amazon says the deployment of robots at the FC is led by one called Sequoia, a multi-level containerized inventory system that Amazon says makes it faster and safer for employees to store and pick goods.
(See More Below)
|
CATEGORY SPONSOR: SOFTEON |
|
|
| |
|
|
In its next-generation facility, Amazon says Sequoia can hold more than 30 million items, making it five times bigger than our first deployment of this system in an FC Houston.
The Sequoia system coordinates the efforts of thousands of mobile robots and a suite of robotic arms to bring items to employees at ergonomically designed workstations.
 Continuing through the fulfillment process, Amazon says that once customer orders are picked, a series of new systems help them move through the FC more rapidly, so they can be packed for delivery.
Finally, packaging automation technology optimizes the packaging process while also replacing plastic materials with paper solutions that are curbside recyclable, according to Amazon.
The company adds that one robotic arm, called Sparrow can now handle over 200 million unique products of all different shapes, sizes, and weights, leveraging advanced computer vision and AI systems.
Another type of robot, called Proteus, is Amazon’s first fully autonomous mobile robot, which transport carts of packages to our outbound dock so they can be loaded into trucks.
Says SCDigest editor Dan Gilmore, “We’re have entered the robotic era in distribution. While there will always be the need for some humans, the number of associates per orders processed will continue to fall.”
Do you have any comments on Amazon's new FC? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below (email) or in the Feedback section.
|
