Tuesday 26 February 2013

Towards a Google Driverless and Amazon Pickerless Future

There has been some relatively negative news of late regarding the working conditions of Amazon warehouse staff.  For example Germany probes Amazon warehouse conditions after film and GMB union holds protest at Amazon sites.

It is not surprising when you see what it is like to work in one of their giant warehouses .

But what surprises me is that they even use people at all. Warehouses dealing at the pallet level are lights out, robotic operations. Surely it is only a small step before the item level is dealt with in the  same way.

If Google are investing in driverless cars , then surely Amazon must be investing in "pickerless" warehousing! Not surprisingly they are,with their investment in Kiva . Other logistics companies are doing the same, with the rise of the warehouse robot .

So, if Google's self-guided car could drive the next wave of unemployment , and robots are taking over the warehouse , then where will the masses work in future?

One thing is for sure, delivering systems like these will definitely require the application of Connected Architecture . So hopefully us architects won't be out of a job just yet...

No comments:

Post a Comment