Inside the automated warehouse where robots are packing your groceries
SMRTR summary
Quiet robots have taken over grocery work at a warehouse near London, where the loudest sound is just the hum of electronics. Here, hundreds of blocky robots zip along a grid-like track, fetching bins of bread, tins, and ready meals without human intervention.
"It isn't useful solving something 90 percent of the time," says James Matthews, Ocado's deputy CEO. "Because if 10 percent of the time you have to pay an expensive engineer to go and unjam it, you're better off doing it manually."
These robots aren't just moving groceries anymore. New robotic arms with suction cups now pack shopping bags directly, handling about 40% of all items. Within three years, they expect that to reach 80%.
The technology powers online grocery operations for Kroger across 14 US states, Sobeys in Canada, and various retailers in Europe and Asia.
Some jobs remain safe for now. Delivery drivers won't be replaced soon, partly because they're the only customer-facing employees. But for warehouse workers packing groceries in freezing conditions? As Matthews puts it, "You just literally cannot find the people who want to come in and work in a freezer."
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to The Verge.
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