HOUSE OF SMARTS

In a traditional Amazon warehouse, a worker might walk between seven and fifteen miles per shift. To save labor by reducing the time spent walking, Amazon today bets on mobile robots that can pick up a shelf of goods and bring the entire shelf to the employee who stays in one spot.

„Moving goods to the people, not the people to the goods“: since 2017 there has also been the first logistics centre in Germany where man and machine cooperate this way. A visit.

Shielded by a huge black grid, huge robot shelves in a bright yellow pass each other on straight tracks, turn around with a twist and precise accuracy, just like dancing. A robots choreography.

Then, they line up in small groups, wait to get filled just to drive back into the corridors, shearing away from the swarm: A few hundred of them are in use, here at the Amazon logistics center in Winsen/Luhe near Hamburg. A hub of 64,000 square metres, operated by the online retailer since the end of 2017.

The robots are called AGV, short for „Automated Guided Vehicles“. As unspectacular as their name is their appearance: A machine on wheels, 16 inches tall, that resembles more an oversized vacuum cleaner which slots underneath the tall upright shelves and carry their loads in a geometric choreography. True to the motto: Move the goods to people, not the people to the goods.

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