大多数拣货工作将由机器人完成
New robots—smarter and faster—are taking over warehouses
更快更智能的新型机器人正在接管仓库
Most picking jobs will be done by bots
大多数拣货工作将由机器人完成【深度】
A DECADE AGO Amazon started to introduce robots into its “fulfilment centres”, as online retailers call their giant distribution warehouses. Instead of having people wandering up and down rows of shelves picking goods to complete orders, the machines would lift and then carry the shelves to the pickers. That saved time and money. Amazon’s sites now have more than 350,000 robots of various sorts deployed worldwide. But even that is not enough to secure its future.
十年前，亚马逊开始在它名为“履单中心”的巨大配送仓库里启用机器人。不需要人类员工在一排排货架之间来回穿梭拣货，机器人会把货架举起来送到拣货员面前。这既省时又省钱。亚马逊如今在全球部署了超过35万台各种各样的机器人。但即便这样也不足以确保未来的需要。
Advances in warehouse robotics, coupled with increasing labour costs and difficulty in finding workers, have created a watershed moment in the logistics industry. With covid-19 lockdowns causing supply-chain disruptions and a boom in home deliveries that is likely to endure, fulfilment centres have been working at full tilt.
仓储机器人技术的进步，加上劳动力成本增加和招工困难，已经在物流行业引发转折点。眼下疫情封锁导致供应链中断，而送货到家业务量大增的势头应该会持续下去，因此履单中心一直在开足马力运作。
Despite the robots, many firms have to bring in temporary workers to cope with increased demand during busy periods. Competition for staff is fierce. In the run-up to the holiday shopping season in December, Amazon brought in some 150,000 extra workers in America alone, offering sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000.
尽管有机器人，许多公司在业务旺季还是需要聘用临时工来应对需求增长。招工的竞争十分激烈。在去年12月假日购物季前夕，亚马逊仅在美国就增加了约15万名员工，入职奖金高达3000美元。
The long-term implications of such a high reliance on increasingly hard-to-find labour in distribution is clear, according to a new study by McKinsey, a consultancy: “Automation in warehousing is no longer just nice to have but an imperative for sustainable growth.”
咨询公司麦肯锡的一项新研究认为，高度依赖日益难求的劳动力对物流配送的长期影响显而易见：“仓储自动化不再只是锦上添花的东西，而是可持续发展的必要条件。”
This means more robots are needed, including newer, more efficient versions to replace those already at work and advanced machines to take over most of the remaining jobs done by humans. As a result, McKinsey forecasts the warehouse-automation market will grow at a compound annual rate of 23% to be worth more than $50bn by 2030.
这意味着需要更多机器人，包括用更新、更高效的版本替换已投入使用的机器人，以及用先进的机器人接替大部分现在仍由人类完成的工作。因此，麦肯锡预测仓储自动化市场将会以23%的复合年增长率扩张，到2030年市场规模将超过500亿美元。
The new robots are coming. One of them is the prototype 600 Series bot. This machine “changes everything” according to Tim Steiner, chief executive of Ocado Group, which began in 2002 as an online British grocer and has evolved over the years into one of the leading providers of warehouse robotics.
新一代机器人即将进驻。其中之一是“600系列”机器人原型。这款机器人“改变了一切”，奥卡多集团（Ocado Group）的首席执行官蒂姆·斯坦纳（Tim Steiner）说。这家2002年成立的英国公司最初是一家在线杂货零售商，这些年来已变身为仓储机器人的主要供应商之一。
The 600 Series is a strange-looking beast, much like a box on wheels made out of skeletal parts. That is because more than half its components are 3D-printed. As 3D-printing builds things up layer by layer it allows the shapes to be optimised, thus using the least amount of material. As a result, the 600 Series is five times lighter than the company’s present generation of bots, which makes it more agile and less demanding on battery power.
“600系列”外形奇特，很像一个由骨架式部件制成的带轮子的盒子。那是因为它一半以上的部件都是3D打印的。由于3D打印是逐层构建成型，因此可以优化形状，把材料用量降到最低。“600系列”因而比奥卡多当前一代机器人轻五倍，所以它更灵活，对电池电量的要求也更低。
March of the machines
进击的机器
Ocado’s bots work in what is known as the “Hive”, a giant metallic grid at the centre of its fulfilment centres. Some of these Hives are bigger than a football pitch.
奥卡多的机器人在“蜂巢”里工作，这是履单中心里的一个巨大的网格状金属柜。有些“蜂巢”比足球场还大。
Each cell on the grid contains products stored in plastic crates, stacked 21 deep. As orders arrive, a bot is dispatched to extract a crate and transport it to a picking station, where a human worker takes all the items they need, scans each one and puts them into a bag, much as happens at a supermarket checkout.
网格柜的每个单元格里都放着装有货品的塑料板条箱，堆叠了21层之多。收到订单后，一台机器人会被派去抽取一个板条箱并把它送到分拣站。在那里，一名人类员工拿出所需要的所有物品，逐个扫描并放入一个袋子中，就和在超市收银台的操作差不多。
It could take an hour or so walking around a warehouse to collect each item manually for a large order. But as hundreds of bots operate on the grid simultaneously, they are much faster. The bots are choreographed by an artificially intelligent computer system, which communicates with each machine over a wireless network. The system allows Ocado’s current bot, the 500 Series, to gather all the goods required for a 50-item order in less than five minutes.
如果是一张大订单，靠人员在仓库中四下取货可能需要一个小时左右。但如果是几百台机器人同时在网格柜上工作，速度就快得多了。这些机器人的工作路线由一个人工智能计算机系统安排，它通过无线网络与每台机器人通信。在这个系统的操控下，奥卡多当前的“500系列”机器人可以在五分钟之内取完一张有50件货品的订单。
The new 600 Series will match or better its predecessor’s performance and use less energy. It also “unlocks a cascade of benefits”, says Mr Steiner, allowing Hives to be smaller and lighter. This means they can be installed in weeks rather than months and at a lower cost. That will make “micro” fulfilment centres viable. Most fulfilment centres are housed in large buildings on out-of-town trading estates, but smaller units could be sited in urban areas closer to customers. This would speed up deliveries, in some cases to within hours.
新的600系列在性能上将等同或优于500系列，而能耗更少。斯坦纳说，它还会“释放一连串的好处”，让“蜂巢”更小更轻。这意味着它们可以在几周内安装完毕，而无需几个月，安装成本也更低。这将让“微型”履单中心变得可行。大多数履单中心都设在郊区贸易园区的大楼里，但较小的履单中心可以设在离客户更近的市区。这将加快配送速度，有时几小时内即可送达。
Amazon is also developing more-efficient robots. Its original machines were known as Kivas, after Kiva Systems, the Massachusetts-based firm that manufactured them. The Kiva is a squat device which can slip under a stack of head-height shelves in which goods are stored. The robot then lifts and carries the shelves to a picking station. In 2012 Amazon bought Kiva Systems for $775m and later changed its name to Amazon Robotics.
亚马逊也在开发更高效的机器人。它最早的机器人叫Kiva，以制造它们的马萨诸塞州的公司Kiva Systems命名。这种扁扁的机器人可以滑到存放货物的一人高的货架之下，然后举起货架，把它送到分拣站。2012年，亚马逊以7.75亿美元收购了Kiva Systems，后将其更名为亚马逊机器人公司（Amazon Robotics）。
Welcome to the jungle
欢迎来到丛林
Amazon Robotics has since developed a family of bots, including a smaller version of a Kiva called Pegasus. These will allow it to pack more goods into its fulfilment centres and also use bots in smaller inner-city distribution sites. To prepare for a more automated future, Amazon Robotics recently opened a new robot manufacturing plant in Westborough, Massachusetts, to boost its output.
此后，亚马逊机器人公司开发了一系列机器人，包括Kiva的缩小版Pegasus。这将让亚马逊能在履单中心存放更多商品，并在较小的市区配送站使用机器人。为了迎接更高度自动化的未来，该公司最近在马萨诸塞州的韦斯特伯勒（Westborough）开设了一家新的机器人制造厂以提高产量。
In 2014, when it became clear that future Kivas would be made exclusively for Amazon, Romain Moulin and Renaud Heitz, a pair of engineers working for a medical firm, decided to set up Exotec, a French rival, to produce a different sort of robotic warehouse. The firm has developed a three-dimensional system, which uses bots called Skypods. Looking a bit like Kivas, they also roam the warehouse floor. But instead of moving shelves, Skypods climb them. Once the robot reaches the necessary level, it extracts a crate, climbs down and delivers it to a picking station.
2014年，当明确了未来Kiva机器人将专为亚马逊生产后，一家医疗公司的两名工程师罗曼·莫林（Romain Moulin）和雷诺·海茨（Renaud Heitz）决定成立Exotec，打造一种不同类型的机器人仓库。这家法国公司开发了一个三维系统，用的是名为Skypod的机器人。它们看起来和Kiva有点像，也是在仓库地上移动。但Skypod不是移送货架，而是爬上去。爬到所需高度它就会取出一个板条箱，然后爬下来送到分拣站。
Skypods, says Mr Moulin, maximise the space in a warehouse because they can ascend shelving stacked 12 metres high. Being modular, the system can be expanded easily. As well as returning crates to the shelves, Skypods also take them to places to be refilled.
莫林说，Skypod最大限度地利用了仓库空间，因为它们可以爬上12米高的货架。由于系统是模块化的，可以轻松扩展。Skypod不仅能把板条箱送回货架，还可以把它们转移到重新装货的地方。
A number of retailers have started using Skypods, including Carrefour, a giant French supermarket group, GAP, an American clothing firm, and Uniqlo, a Japanese one. Because such robots move quickly and could cause injury—Skypods zoom along at four metres per second (14kph)—they tend to operate in closed areas. If Amazon’s staff need to enter the robot area they don a special safety vest. This contains electronics which signal to any nearby bots that a human is present. The bot will then stop or take an alternative route.
一些零售商已经开始使用Skypod，包括法国大型超市集团家乐福、美国服装公司GAP和日本服装公司优衣库。因为这些机器人移动迅速（Skypods每秒可行进4米，也就是每小时14公里），有可能造成人员伤害，所以它们往往在封闭区域内运行。如果亚马逊的人类员工需要进入机器人区域，他们会穿上特殊的安全背心。背心里装有电子设备，可向近旁的机器人发出信号，表明此处有人。机器人会暂停行进，或改走另一条路线。
Some robots, however, are designed to work alongside people in warehouses. They often ferry things between people taking goods off shelves and pallets to people putting them into bags and boxes for shipping. Such systems can avoid the cost of installing fixed infrastructure, which lets warehouses be reconfigured quickly—useful for logistics centres that work for multiple retailers and have to deal with constantly changing product lines.
但有些机器人设计的初衷是与人类一道在仓库中工作。常见的工作模式是由人类员工从货架和托盘中取出货品，再由机器人传送给负责将它们放入袋子和箱子中以备运输的员工。这样的系统可以免除安装固定基础设施的成本，可以快速重新配置仓库，这对为多个零售商配送、并且需要处理不断变化的产品线的物流中心来说很有用。
When robots work among people, however, they have to be fitted with additional safety systems, such as cameras, radar and other sensors, to avoid bumping into staff. Hence they tend to move slowly and are cautious, which can result in bots frequently coming to a standstill and slowing operations. However, machines that are more capable and aware of their surroundings are on the way.
然而，当机器人融入人群里工作，它们必须配备摄像头、雷达和其他传感器等额外的安全系统，以避免碰撞人。因此，它们往往行动缓慢、小心谨慎，这可能导致机器人频繁停顿，拖慢操作速度。不过，功能更强大、更能感知周围环境的机器人即将上岗。
For instance, NEC, a Japanese electronics group, has started using “risk-sensitive stochastic control technology”, which is software similar to that used in finance to avoid high-risk investments. In this case, though, it allows a robot to weigh up risks when taking any action, such as selecting the safest and fastest route through a warehouse. In trials, NEC says it doubles the average speed of a robot without making compromises on safety.
例如，日本电气公司NEC已开始使用“风险敏感随机控制技术”，这种软件类似于金融领域里避免高风险投资的程序。不过在仓储场景下，它可以让机器人在采取任何行动之前权衡风险，例如选择穿过仓库的最安全、最快速的路线。NEC表示，在测试中，该软件在不影响安全的情况下将机器人的平均速度提高了一倍。
New tricks
新花招
The toughest job to automate in a warehouse is picking and packing, hence the demand for extra pairs of hands during busy periods. This task is far from easy for robots because fulfilment centres stock tens of thousands of different items, in many shapes, sizes and weights.
仓库中最难自动化的工作是拣货和打包，因此在旺季需要增加人手。要用机器人来完成这些工作很不容易，因为履单中心存放了难以计数的各类商品，形状、尺寸和重量都各不相同。
Nevertheless, Amazon, Ocado, Exotec and others are beginning to automate the task by placing robotic arms at some picking stations. These arms tend to use cameras and read barcodes to identify goods, and suction pads and other mechanisms to pick them up. Machine learning, a form of AI, is employed to teach the robots how to handle specific items, for example not to put potatoes on top of eggs.
尽管如此，亚马逊、奥卡多、Exotec和其他公司已经开始在一些分拣站安装机械臂来实现自动化分拣。这些机械臂一般是用摄像头和读取条形码来识别商品，用吸盘等机制拣货。人们用机器学习这种人工智能技术来教机器人如何处理特定的商品，例如不要把土豆放在鸡蛋上面。
Ocado is also developing an arm which could bypass a picking station and take items directly from crates in the Hive. Fetch Robotics, a Silicon Valley producer of logistics robots that was acquired last year by Zebra Technologies, a computing firm, has developed a mobile picking arm which can travel around a fulfilment centre.
奥卡多也在开发一种机械臂，可以绕过分拣站，直接从“蜂巢”的板条箱中取出货品。硅谷的物流机器人生产商“抓取机器人”（Fetch Robotics）开发了一种可以在履单中心里四下移动的拣货机械臂，该公司去年被计算公司斑马技术（Zebra Technologies）收购。
Boston Dynamics, another Massachusetts robot-maker, has come up with a heavyweight mobile version called Stretch, which can unpack lorries and put boxes on pallets. On January 26th DHL, a logistics giant, placed the first order for Stretch robots. It will deploy them in its North American warehouses over the next three years.
另一家马萨诸塞州的机器人制造商波士顿动力（Boston Dynamics）推出了一款名为Stretch的重型移动机器人，它可以给货车卸货并把箱子放上托盘。1月26日，物流巨头DHL下了首张Stretch订单，将在未来三年内在其北美仓库中部署这种机器人。
That timetable gives a clue that progress will not be rapid. It will take ten to 15 years before robots begin to be adept at picking and packing goods, reckons Zehao Li, the author of a new report on warehouse robotics for IDTechEx, a firm of British analysts. Some companies think their bots will be able to pick 80% or so of their stock over the coming years, although much depends on the range of goods carried by different operations.
这样的时间表揭示仓储机器人的发展不会太快。英国分析公司IDTechEx新发布了一份有关仓储机器人技术的报告，作者李泽豪（音译）估计，机器人能开始熟练地分拣和包装货物需要10到15年时间。一些公司认为，它们的机器人将能够在未来几年内分拣80%左右的货物，尽管这在很大程度上待视不同业务涉及的商品种类。
Objects with irregular shapes, like bananas or loose vegetables, can be hard for a robot to grasp if it has primarily been built to pick up products in neat packages. The bot might also be restricted in what weight it can lift, so would struggle with a flat-screen television or a heavy cask of beer. Further into the future, systems could emerge to overcome many of these limitations, such as multi-arm robots.
如果一台机器人主要是设计来抓取包装规整的商品，那它可能很难抓住香蕉或松散的蔬菜等形状不规则的物体。它能抓起的重量可能也有限，因此难以搬动平板电视或沉重的桶装啤酒。在更久远的未来可能会出现能够克服许多这些限制的系统，例如多臂机器人。
So what jobs will remain? On the warehouse floor, at least, that mainly leaves technicians maintaining and fixing robots, says Mr Li. He thinks there are also likely to be a handful of supervisors watching over the bots and lending a hand if there remains anything that their mechanical brethren still can’t handle. It is not just inside the warehouse where jobs will go, but outside, too, once driverless delivery vehicles are allowed. At that point many products will travel through the supply chain and to people’s homes untouched by human hand.
那还能剩下什么岗位给人类呢？至少在仓库里，留下来的人主要会是维护和修理机器人的技术人员，李泽豪说。他认为可能还会留几个人来监督机器人的工作，在机械兄弟们碰到它们仍旧应付不了的问题时伸出援手。而一旦开始启用无人驾驶货车，不光是在仓库内，仓库外的人类岗位也会流失。届时，许多产品在供应链中流转和送货上门都将无需人类经手。
People will also be employed building robots. Amazon Robotics’s new factory will create more than 200 new manufacturing jobs, although that dwindles into insignificance compared with the more than 1m jobs which the pioneer of e-commerce has created since the first robots arrived in its fulfilment centres. A lot of those jobs are bound to go, although many are monotonous and strenuous, which is why they are hard to fill.
生产机器人也还是会雇用人类。亚马逊机器人公司的新工厂将新创造200多个制造业岗位，尽管相比亚马逊自第一批机器人进入其履单中心以来创造的超过100万个工作岗位，这个数字微不足道。很多这样的岗位势必会消失，尽管其中很多工作单调又费力——这也是它们难以招到人的原因。
However, other jobs will emerge. Technological change inevitably creates new roles for people. In the 1960s there used to be thousands of telephone switchboard operators, a job which has almost disappeared since exchanges became automated. But the number of other jobs in telecoms has soared. As logistics gets more efficient through greater automation, and online businesses grow, the overall level of employment in e-commerce should still increase. Many of these roles will be different sorts of jobs, just as there are many different sorts of robot. ■
不过，还会出现其他工作。技术变革必然会为人类创造出新角色。上世纪60年代有成千上万的电话总机接线员，而自从交换机自动化以来，这个工种已消失殆尽。但电信行业其他的工作岗位数量猛增。自动化程度的提高提升了物流效率，网上业务也不断增长，因此电子商务的整体就业水平应该仍会提高。未来将有许多不同类型的机器人，也会有很多不同类型的工作。
