Massive increase in robot warehouse workers coming

[ergophobe]

In the run-up to the holiday shopping season in December, Amazon brought in some 150,000 extra workers in America alone, offering sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000.

... As a result, McKinsey forecasts the warehouse-automation market will grow at a compound annual rate of 23% to be worth more than $50bn by 2030.

...One of them is the prototype 600 Series bot. This machine "changes everything" according to Tim Steiner, chief executive of Ocado Group [that's that Hive video we saw]... That is because more than half its components are 3d-printed.

It will take ten to 15 years before robots begin to be adept at picking and packing goods, reckons Zehao Li, the author of a new report on warehouse robotics for idTechEx, a firm of British analysts.

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/a-new-generation-of-smarter-and-faster-robots-are-taking-over-distribution-centres/21807595

[rcjordan]

>600

Good look at the bot here:

Ocado's New Warehouse Robot Features 300 3D Printed Parts - 3DPrint.com
https://3dprint.com/288572/ocados-new-warehouse-robot-features-300-3d-printed-parts/