tireless worker

Robots work non-stop for 20 hours a day and each collect up to 2 million food items each turn, more than the capacity of a human worker. Robots can take orders in five minutes, which is about five times faster than a trained human worker. Currently, powered by an algorithm, these robots pick up boxes of goods to carry to humans and put them in shopping bags for delivery. But the idea is that the work is practically completely automated.

This is not an android, more like an oven on wheels working on a grid system; the robot, with more than half of its parts printed in 3D, moves over the squares, like pieces on a chessboard. Under the floor, each box hides stacks of up to 21 containers. Containers filled with some of the 50,000 products offered by Ocado, saved according to the algorithm which predicts when they will be needed. When someone orders, the robots turn themselves on and head for the container they need, passing within five millimeters of each other.

Bots are not autonomousInstead, they are governed by systems that work like air traffic control and plan their routes for them.

Future

Most warehouses working with this technology have not yet reached full capacity, so this new technology means that workers can be moved from one job to another; then a wave of layoffs is not expected (at least temporarily).

Based on okadothe system does not require a specially constructed warehouse, so Ocado technology can be quickly set up for its customers, which include Marks & Spencer in the UK and Kroger in the US.

Reference: OCADO