WAREHOUSES
SMART
Cargo warehouse workers
go through a complex
journey of self-discovery
when the robots first arrive.
Their initial standoffishness
has been fuelled by sci-fi
movies and media stories
about robots making human
workforces redundant. But the
workers gradually warm to the
robots, first learning to tolerate
company deploying the Fetch
them and later accepting them
robots, for example at the
as colleagues.
Netherlands-based warehouse
The CEO of Fetch Robotics,
of Finnish power systems
client Wärtsilä. Like many of
the robot manufacturers, Fetch
provides robots that perform
material handling and others
that carry out data surveys,
which Smith describes as “the
utterly boring task of trudging
up and down the aisles”.
Data surveys, he reveals, were Melanee Wise, has observed
the transformation in attitudes
closely and wrote a blog
plotting the five stages of the
human-robot psycho-drama.
Until the robot arrives, Wise
says that the human attitude is
one of pure fear. That is toned
down slightly to apprehension
once they appear, but there
is still anxiety about a loss
of control. The third stage
is curiosity, which happens
within a few hours of the first
meeting. This is when workers
carry out amusing experiments
such as jumping in front of
the robots.
After a few days, or
sometimes weeks, humans
become more positive.
During this tolerance stage,
productivity increases as they
start to use the robots as tools.
Finally, there is the satisfaction
stage when robots are seen
as integral to operations and
are anthropomorphised. “The
humans often decorate them,
give them names and take
selfies. One company gave
them the names of Marvel
Finding a human being in a warehouse could
soon be a thing of the past
CZECH
MATE
Robots are a sign of the times
and, as David Smith discovers,
they are coming to a distribution
warehouse near you…
operates more than 100,000 of
the little orange units; and DB
Shenker is working with IAM
Robotics. According to Allied
Market Research, the global
warehouse robotics market
was valued at US$2.44bn in
2016 and is expected to reach
US$5.19bn by 2023.
DHL is one logistics
superheroes,” comments Tim
Smith, a spokesman for Fetch
Robotics. “But this final stage
of satisfaction is also when the
robots reach peak efficiency.”
Robots in the workplace
The human journey from
resentment to acceptance of
robots is increasingly common
for warehouse workers in the
cargo industry. Several logistics
companies are collaborating
with robotics firms to
introduce autonomous mobile
robots (or AMRs) into their
operations. XPO Logistics, for
example, has teamed up with
AMR company GreyOrange to
operate 5,000 of their robots
across the US and Europe.
Meanwhile, Amazon bought
Kiva Robotics in 2012 and
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