

Warehouse robots come of age - Glowbox
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/123765-automation-warehouse-robots-come-of-age-as-amazon-buys-kiva

======
ahi
More than a decade ago I worked in a warehouse with far superior automation
than moving pods. Pieces could be picked off 50 foot high shelves and moved to
the proper packing stations and loading dock on conveyors. Moving entire
shelving units around seems a horrible waste of energy, not to mention floor
space (limits on shelving height plus allowance for movement).

~~~
zeteo
Using robots for this task is more a question of fixed cost than anything
else. Rather than build a conveyor belt to each cubbyhole in the warehouse -
some of which may not be used for weeks on end - it's much cheaper to have a
few robots that go to each spot as needed. And it's also more flexible, since
it's easy to add or remove robots as needed.

In computing terms, conveyor belts everywhere cost O(warehouse space) to
build, whereas mobile robots cost O(activity volume). Profits are also, most
likely, O(activity volume).

~~~
onemoreact
I think maintenance costs / downtime is also a big factor. With robots most
failures simply reduce throughput but with conveyor belts you risk shutting
down sections of the warehouse when something breaks or needs to be repaired.
On the other hand you can order a few extra robots and swap then out for
maintenance.

As to energy costs, moving a shelf a at most 1/2 mile at low speeds on a level
floor using electric motors probably uses less energy than you might think.
Don't forget human pickers are say 150lb people walking up and down the same
isles and they use about 150-200W to do so. The shelves weigh more (up to
1,000 lb), but you can a turn off most of the lights and electric motors are
more efficient than walking. Assuming it's 400W a robot that's around 4 cents
an hour per robot or something like 300$ a year.

------
asdfdsa1234
This article has a low but not abysmal content-to-annoying-ad ratio

~~~
ahi
Most of the content seems to be thinly veiled PR/ads as well.

