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Walmart Running Into Trouble as Its Super-Expensive Robots Can’t Handle the Realities of Warehouse Work: It's an automation "arms race." (futurism.com)
submitted 5 days ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 27 points 5 days ago (23 children)

Robots are more expensive and are less capable than people? What a surprise! Not. I saw that coming years ago... 🙄

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  • [–] 16 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Especially at Walmart when loading a truck means throwing the shit inside and as fast as possible. Used to unload Walmart trucks. Wish had pics (this was wat before smartphones) You open back doors and the boxes would just spill out. There was always breakage. But Walmart didn't care. It fuck up way Walmart does business and they are shady as fuck. But allows them to not care about the products. But yeah robots are slow and no way can work at the speeds required at a Walmart distribution facility.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 days ago

    There's lot of types of warehouse automation outside of a robot skating on the ground picking up pallets or cases or anything. As in, there are certainly automation systems that work alongside people or other different bots that absolutely thrash the throughput of a typical warehouse operation

    Walmart merely made a number of very stupid decisions when entering the automation game, but to them its drops in a bucket. They'll just move on to the next one

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Wait, you don't know all the facts yet! We have a free trial for you of our fully automated hairdresser! You will be stunned how a whirlwind of blades trims the stuff growing out of your head in a mere minute! Without boring human conversations! For a little fee of 200 dollar per trail!

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago

    We had our super-intelligent robot hairdresser clone the voice of your old human hairdresser. It knows all the gossip, remembers the names of your grandchildren and can even tell you jokes and riddles! You should feel safe spilling your secrets to Carina the RoboBarber.

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  • [–] -4 points 5 days ago (18 children)

    Unfortunately the robots are substantially faster and more effective than humans. Can you run at ~45 mph?

    The issue is complexity and that's something that's getting better over time.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    Unfortunately robots are not able to think critically

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago

    They don't need to. No more than a conveyor needs to think critically.

    I think people are envisioning the robots moving through a warehouse that was built for humans. That is not the case.

    Special purpose warehouses are built with the robots in mind. The bots don't need to navigate an uncontrolled environment as the environment was meant for them.

    It's basically a really big, really performant conveyor belt.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (6 children)

    Complexity is expensive.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (5 children)

    Expensive isn't really an issue though is it?

    If I can guarantee you quadruple your revenue by doubling your expense, you'd take the deal no? That's basically what these things do.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (4 children)

    To be a bit more precise, is it about throughput or lead time? Because for throughput I imagine you can just have more workers, but for quicker shipping you need to do pick and pack in less time, rather than do a lot of them in a given time.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago (3 children)

    Throughput primarily, the bottleneck is still shipping. These systems do allow for picking/packing faster as well but from a logistics standpoint if you want more output you just need more trucks.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (2 children)

    How does it help in getting more revenue then? Demand wouldn't change, right?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)

    Businesses tend to bank on demand for products being functionally infinite over the long term. Because of this it tends to be a safe bet that you'll make more money the quicker, and cheaper, you can get products on shelves.

    This has held pretty true thus far, though personally I have to wonder if there's an upper limit. Human's have to have a upper tolerance for buying junk right?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (7 children)

    My stand up Jack can go just as fast. The problem isn't top speed, it's acceleration and breaking. It's being able to rip around a warehouse building orders quickly and efficiently. A dude with a stand up Jack and a voxcoder can beat most robots.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 days ago (5 children)

    The company this post is referring to doesn't have bots moving around a warehouse designed for humans. They built a whole building with shelves and space designed for the robots.

    I promise you, the throughout is tremendously higher than humans alone. The bots can get up to roughly 45mph in a few seconds and break to a full stop in the same amount of time. I know this because I work in this space, the system is fast

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (4 children)

    And it actually works? They can't even figure out how to make vending machines that don't cause a log-jam.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    I work for warehouse automation too. It absolutely works. Its just very carefully, meticulously planned. Every tiny edge case is accounted for. Hell. We measure the floor for difference in height to the mm where 3 is a big issue.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (1 child)

    Thats kind of the whole problem with robots as tools. They can be incredibly fast and precise but if something is just slightly out of expected alignment they tear themselves apart (or kill someone nearby).

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  • [–] 2 points 4 days ago

    Same could be said for using a saw, or electricity.

    If its designed correctly, conforms to safety requirements, there is no real risk to human health.

    Of course a not can always crash, but that should be accounted for and tested against much like go carts on a track

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago

    Ever notice that the top end speed of the non riding ones, the ones that you walk behind, us just a little beyond a comfortable walking pace? Always found that curious. Not quite running, but certainly not walking either. Hips would hurt at the end of a shift.

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