The robots are gathering to help beat Britain’s supply-chain shortages
Building automated warehouses
SOME 3,000 boxy robots, each the size of a small refrigerator, are scurrying around a metallic chequerboard about seven times the size of a football pitch. Every second or so one halts as a crate of groceries rises up and is deposited inside it. The bot then conveys the crate to a picking station, where a human puts orders into bags. This is the “Hive” (pictured), a giant fulfilment centre in Erith, south-east London, operated by Ocado, an online grocer. An AI-driven computer system choreographs the bots’ movements. Each travels some 60km a day, helping to bag around 1m items.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Santa’s little helpers”
Britain December 11th 2021
- Behind the chaos and scandal of Boris Johnson’s government lies stasis
- A court bashes Uber into compliance—again
- For the clinically vulnerable, “Freedom Day” has yet to arrive
- Britain is liberalising its listing rules to revive its battered bourse
- Nostalgia and the profit motive have created a market in old phone kiosks
- The robots are gathering to help beat Britain’s supply-chain shortages
- Britain’s new suburbs are peculiar places
From the December 11th 2021 edition
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