Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

motherjones.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 209 posts

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#191

Post by schiffern »

JohnsonB wrote: post #75
scarmig wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume that you would need 1000 machines to have as much throughput as 4000 people. WAG, but I'd wager that each of those machines would cost $500k. That means 100 million in immediate outlays. WAG 2: fuel/electricity/maintenance is $200/month, and you need a team of 20 engineers to watch over them at $10k/engineer/month. So recurring costs come to $400k. Which brings us to: 100M/1.3M = 77 months, or between 6…

This article: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/09/smallbusiness/kiva_robots/in... says that 1000 robots costs $15-20 million, not the $500 million that 500k a piece would run. Also what is there to indicate such a hefty need for engineering oversight? 20 engineers constantly overseeing the machines sounds like they are either constantly breaking down, or need a significant amount of custom programming per unit as upkeep,…

>I would be curious about the energy needs per unit, though.

An 180 lb person speed walking at 5 mph burns 650 Calories/hr. That's 80¢/shift in electricity.

But that's not the big savings. Humans need lights and air-conditioning – robots don't. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0#t=5m40s

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#192

Post by schiffern »

ricardobeat wrote: post #58
potatolicious wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diapers is not a seasonal business. The problem with full automation is that your capacity has to be whatever peak load is - and peak load can be two orders of magnitude above your normal steady-state. That's a lot of robots sitting around doing nothing, whereas manual labor can be just as seasonal as the demand they are meant to fulfill.

Sounds like an opportunity for a standardized, flexible industrial robot platform geared towards rentals.

That's exactly what Kiva does.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110614005178/en/Kiva...

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#193

Post by moheeb »

dkersten wrote: post #144
potatolicious wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But with robots, you can probably get them to be cheaper even when taking into account seasonality." I can't say much without violating some NDA or another, but I'd check that assumption. Industrial robotics are anything but cheap, and remember, you're stacking them up against near-minimum wage laborers who have little to no benefits and you only pay for them when they're utilized.

Why not combine the two? Robots all year round and then hire short term laborers for the seasonal peak times.

You mean have Robocop and Darth Vader stacking boxes?

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#194

Post by Jinzang »

I've got a modest proposal. Let's bring back slavery. Then employers would worry about employee injuries, have work for them year round instead of only hiring during peak season, and in general treat their slaves with the concern that posters here seem to reserve for robots.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#195

Post by noonespecial »

onemoreact wrote: post #181
noonespecial wrote: post #35

If you ever find yourself in a situation where static electricity is a problem as in this article, find a regular wooden pencil, break it in half, sharpen both ends and then blunt them a bit so they don't poke you. As you approach the metal object, touch the end of the pencil to it first. Make sure you are in good contact with the other end. The graphite "lead" is a conductor. You won't feel the shock.

Works with any conductor like a ring or tape a paperclip to your index finger. I often touch the metallic part of my keys then use the key's to touch your door.

The pencil seems to work better, perhaps because the graphite has some resistance. I usually feel it a bit when I use a key.

In this case, the people in the warehouse were unable to carry metal in because the delay at the metal detectors would mean they got no break time. The nub of pencil would be ideal.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#196

Post by vellum »

potatolicious wrote: post #151
dkersten wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not combine the two? Robots all year round and then hire short term laborers for the seasonal peak times.

Quite possible, and the hybrid approach is practiced quite widely - e.g., robot packing machines, robot sorting machines, etc. One big issue with hybrid approaches that require robots to run around warehouses is that humans are squishy and present a significant safety hazard that will also reduce efficiency. Much of a totally automated solution's appeal is the dramatic efficiency increase that comes from not having s…

You could make separate areas. One for the robots, one for the humans.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#197

Post by schiffern »

latj wrote: post #25
nostromo wrote: post #7

It strikes me that these sort of manual warehouse picking jobs will be completely gone in a few years as robots automate the picking process (as seen here with Diapers.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXOW6v0c8s )

People have been saying this for a long time. Automated picking has been around for years. When Amazon bought the large e-commerce place I worked for, the first thing they did was turn off the automated picking and replace it with people. When its cheaper and more simple to use robots, people will use robots.

Zappos?

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#198

Post by pyre »

chii wrote: post #106
pyre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you know what changed ? Their economic system. So the thing that we should all aspire to as a species is the venerable Chinese sweatshop? The 'perfect storm' of capitalism, anti-unionism, and corporatism?

People voted with their wallets. The verdict is very clear - most people prefer cheap goods to humanitarianism and proper treatment of workers.

So long as it's significantly abstracted away from them. If they were US workers, or people they might meet on the street, it would be a different issue. There is a disconnect.

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#199

Post by batista »

ekianjo wrote: post #159
lukifer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> respect and recognition of private property At some level, private property is an invention of the State. Without that, the property belongs to whoever can defend it, and whoever has the most guns wins. This becomes even more significant with the advent of intellectual property, also an invention of the State. There are many digital examples of "everything belongs to everyone" that are going extremely well, and luc…

I disagree with your point that "private property is an invention of the State". There is no need for any state to claim property on something. As you said, as long as you can defend what you have, it "belongs" to you. I'm pretty sure prehistoric men had a concept of property. Even animals have a sense of property. A dog will defend the bone it likes to chew on. A bird will fight to defend its nest. Property is rathe…

Again, please put this rhetoric in perspective, not in the eyes of a 21st century person from a developped society, but in the eyes of a person of that time, who had the choice between staying in an enpoverished countryside, potentially victim of starvation and malnourishment, and the perspective of having a stable, paid job in a factory.

Let's not play the "they chose it" or "at least they were fed" argument for those situations. Having to choose between starvation and working as a wage-slave in horrible conditions, as they had, is not really a choice at all.

It's just employees of the time TAKING ADVANTAGE of people that had no other option than giving in to them, and the laws et al permitting them to do so. It is only slightly better than the "choice" slaves had, i.e that of working for their masters or getting killed.

People were NOT stupid. They made the choice of "more gains", not less. They ended up richer and in better position than where they started. They progressed on the social ladder.

Yes, working to your bone and getting paid peanuts is "more gains" over dying of starvation. Nothing to write home about, though.

I wouldn't call it exactly "progressing on the social ladder" either. Those people were dirt poor, they died dirt poor, and their children were dirt poor also, usually working on the same dead end conditions. With the occasional success story.

And those people knew the were getting a raw deal. That's how the labour movement was established, that's why people fought for the 8-hour day. And those people were also many times killed, by private guards and even the national guard, ever lending a hand to the rich men of their day, when they asked for fairer treatment.

One of my most vivid memories was visiting the Ludlow site in Ludlow, Colorado, and hearing of the story of the Ludlow Massacre, one of many. Here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

Re: I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave: Inside the online-shopping shipping machine

#200

Post by pyre »

ekianjo wrote: post #81
pyre wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you know what changed ? Their economic system. So the thing that we should all aspire to as a species is the venerable Chinese sweatshop? The 'perfect storm' of capitalism, anti-unionism, and corporatism?

You should go in China for once, and talk to Chinese people to better understand their situation. They were miserable in the countryside, and the "sweatshops" you mention are already providing them with a better life than what they had. That's why you will keep seeing those kind of news: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/fox... By the way, that's where America was like 100 years ago. People nee…

The cultural values in China are also different than in the West. Chinese culture (from my experience) tends to be less about the individual, and more about the group. This makes it easier for people to swallow 'hellish' conditions because they are sending money back home to their family, and therefore their family as a whole is 'better.'

Also, I wouldn't say that things like:

* Forcing foreign businesses to partner with a Chinese company if they want to do business in China.

or

* Kicking people out of their homes (with no compensation) to make way for construction/development (e.g. Chinese Olympic Stadium).

Necessarily jive with a capitalist society.

Post reply on HN