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Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#461

Post by Avshalom »

blakesterz wrote: post #3

"That would amount to more than 1,300 cuts across 55 U.S. fulfillment centers for standard-sized inventory." ... "removing at least 24 roles at each one, these people said. These facilities typically employ more than 2,000 people." I'm surprised that number is so low. There's only a couple dozen people out of 2000+ that actually put orders in boxes?

'standard-sized inventory' is probably doing a lot of heavy lifting. If this the same machine several of the videos there's no bubble wrapping by the machine and no option to use dunnage to put several wildly different sized objects in one box, or deal with like a lamp or a toilet plunger. There's still gonna be manual packing it's just now there will by SIOC, automatic-boxed and manual-boxed categories when presorting for shipping instead of just SIOC and boxed.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#462

Post by fwip »

j-c-hewitt wrote: post #364
sandworm101 wrote: post #35

I'm surprised that Amazon still uses boxes. They have the market power to insist manufacturers comply with amazon-specific packaging requirements. Why not just insist that all products be packaged in postal-compatible packaging? Then the amazon warehouse robot need only slap a label on the product and throw it in the shipping bin. Another answer would be to have products packaged in standard, or at lease square, boxe…

This would be impractical. For one thing, scuff-resistant packaging material is also necessarily less attractive than glossy and colorful packaging that holds high detail photographs & illustrations better. This would also be very inefficient because you would have to store the postal-ready boxes at the fulfillment warehouses in an inefficient way instead of just putting them into bins. When shipping products to cust…

Or yet another complication: reconfiguring to manufacture a new product usually takes a lot of work. A product will be only produced for a week or two, but sold over a period of months or years. The factory isn't in the storage and shipping business, so why not send it to somebody who is?

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#463

Post by zjaffee »

mamon wrote: post #445
geodel wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well people here keep ranting about 1 percenters without ever realizing that >$100K earners are among one percenters in the world.

Actually, the threshold to be in top 1% income bracket worldwide is $32,400 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/05061...

This number is both old and in nominal terms. A person making 50k USD in China is likely richer than a person in the US making 100k USD in the US.

http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/771271476908686029/Segal.pdf suggests that the number to be in the global 1% is around $50,000 PPP per person in a given household.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#464

Post by jtolmar »

smpetrey wrote: post #303

Anyone parading around like this is bad news has never worked in an assembly line or warehouse job. This might reduce the workforce overall long-term, but honestly this is hard back-breaking long-workday labor. Anything that improves the livelihood of the warehouse workers is a win in my book.

Automation itself is a good thing. The way our economy is structured to respond to automation is predictably bad for the workers though.

Consider a hypothetical world where, every time a job was automated away, the person who lost their job got a pension equal to the difference in operating costs (they were paid $15/hr, the machines cost $6/hr, this person gets a $9/hr pension). In this world everyone looks forward to having their job automated and many people try to replace themselves or improve the efficiency of the machines that replaced them. And if this hypothetical world started doing this 100 years ago, everyone there is retired by now.

There are some flaws with that plan, but the gap between that world and ours shows that people are justified in being upset at the effects of automation.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#465

Post by pryce »

smpetrey wrote: post #303

Anyone parading around like this is bad news has never worked in an assembly line or warehouse job. This might reduce the workforce overall long-term, but honestly this is hard back-breaking long-workday labor. Anything that improves the livelihood of the warehouse workers is a win in my book.

If we are being honest, this isn't being installed to "improve the livelihood of warehouse workers", it is being installed in anticipation of improving the bottom line for Amazon's shareholders. There may be benefits or detriments to the workforce along the way; considerations like the "wellbeing of the workforce" are effectively given a weight of zero in these decisions.

People's values can and will diverge on whether the bottom-line driven approach described above amounts to an ethically defensible system, but we shouldn't be under illusions as to how decisions like this are made.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#466

Post by nikofeyn »

amazon is on a downhill decline for me. their scale and automation of both humans and machine yields a disconnected service. a large percentage of books i receive from them, which is substantial, are damaged upon arrival. but what do they care? they just initiate a replacement with no questions asked, but now i have to repack the material and go to ups or an amazon locker. i am now working for them for free! my time and effort is explicitly being used as quality control, and this is undoubtedly factored into their statistics.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#467

Post by markbnj »

smpetrey wrote: post #303

Anyone parading around like this is bad news has never worked in an assembly line or warehouse job. This might reduce the workforce overall long-term, but honestly this is hard back-breaking long-workday labor. Anything that improves the livelihood of the warehouse workers is a win in my book.

I mean that's kind of a narrow view isn't it? Sure these are not fun jobs to have. I worked ten hour shifts at an injection molding company when I was in my 20's. Ten hours of open the door, remove the part, close the door, put the part in the bin, repeat. I would welcome a world in which no human ever had to be part of a production line again. But you know what also sucks? Not being able to pay your bills, feed your kids, obtain medical care, feel even a shred of dignity. So until we have some idea of how to structurally handle this transition, and until we've developed a mindset where the people who run corporations take such things into account, such unbridled enthusiasm for the elimination of "bad" jobs rings hollow.

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#468

Post by [deleted] »

mft_ wrote: post #102
sandworm101 wrote: post #35

I'm surprised that Amazon still uses boxes. They have the market power to insist manufacturers comply with amazon-specific packaging requirements. Why not just insist that all products be packaged in postal-compatible packaging? Then the amazon warehouse robot need only slap a label on the product and throw it in the shipping bin. Another answer would be to have products packaged in standard, or at lease square, boxe…

> Or do away with the warehouse altogether and have products ship directly from manufacturers. I wonder if anyone has tried that? Erm... manufacturers have been shipping their own products for years... but they're not very good at it, compared to Amazon? As in, they offer standard slow shipping (vs. same-day or next-day with Prime), shipping you have to pay for per item (vs. Prime), shipping that is often unreasonabl…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon rolls out machines that pack orders and replace jobs

#470

Post by mensetmanusman »

zjaffee wrote: post #463
mamon wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the threshold to be in top 1% income bracket worldwide is $32,400 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/05061...

This number is both old and in nominal terms. A person making 50k USD in China is likely richer than a person in the US making 100k USD in the US. http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/771271476908686029/Segal.pdf suggests that the number to be in the global 1% is around $50,000 PPP per person in a given household.

Except that the Chinese person is a prisoner in their own country, and the American could move to China to have a higher quality of life outside of the polluted cities.
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