There’s an 800-pound gorilla within the warehouse, and its identify is Amazon.
Again in 2012, the corporate purchased Kiva Methods for $775 million and renamed it Amazon Robotics. The deal, in hindsight, was a prescient indicator of the outsized function robotics would take within the warehouse automation and achievement trade.
In only one decade, Amazon has reworked warehouse automation, grown its fleet of autonomous cellular robots to greater than 500,000 and, consequently, utterly redefined shopper expectations for quick, free supply.
That’s an achievement worthy of exploration and why we’re thrilled to announce that Joe Quinlivan, VP of International Robotics, Achievement and Data Expertise at Amazon, will be a part of us on stage at TC Classes: Robotics 2022 on July 22 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Persevering with labor shortages and elevated e-commerce demand, each components pushed by the continuing results of COVID-19, imply the necessity for automated options isn’t going wherever however up. And Amazon continues to speculate closely. In 2021, the corporate opened its new, $40 million, 350,000 sq. foot Robotics Innovation Hub in Westborough, MA — a sister web site to its close by North Studying facility.
Automation is Amazon’s not-so-secret e-commerce weapon, and we will’t wait to listen to Quinlivan discuss what it took to construct its huge robotic military. And we’re curious to be taught what improvements may come subsequent.
A number of the autonomous cellular robots (AMRs) the corporate presently “employs” shuttle containers throughout big warehouses, that are 800,000 sq. ft on common, that staff then fill or unpack. These robots can shave literal miles off the quantity of strolling required of many warehouse staff throughout a given shift.
We’ll additionally examine in with Quinlivan about how lengthy it may be earlier than we see the final word, but nonetheless elusive, automation instrument: a robotic with human hand-like dexterity that may grip, carry and transfer merchandise of various sizes and shapes.
Quinlivan, who holds a number of levels in engineering and pc science, ought to be the person with the solutions. In spite of everything, he’s accountable for driving Amazon’s robotics group ahead by turning advanced issues into elegant options.
Don’t miss an interesting dialog with Joe Quinlivan, the overall of Amazon’s robotic military, about what it took to construct it and what we will anticipate from the subsequent wave of automated warehouse robots.
TC Classes: Robotics 2022 takes place in particular person on July 22 in Boston, Massachusetts. Purchase your move earlier than June 25 at 11:59 pm (PT) and save $200. Then prepare to hitch the robotics neighborhood’s high technologists, makers, thinkers, researchers and buyers.
