Cyber Monday: Amazon's Fleet of Robots Work Around the Clock to Fill Orders
How the online seller's busiest employees work to fill orders.
— -- There's a place where robots and humans co-exist peacefully, working around the clock to make wishes come true.
That utopia exists at ten Amazon fulfillment centers where a fleet of Kiva robots work with humans to efficiently fill the rush of Cyber Monday and holiday orders.
Amazon said this year, they're using 15,000 robots in ten warehouses around the country.
Craig Berman, Amazon's vice president of global communications, said the orange robots -- which are a foot high and weigh 320-pounds -- have helped the company get packages to consumers more efficiently.
"It makes things much faster," he told ABC News. "In our older generation buildings we are very proud we can get something out the door in a couple hours ... in a Kiva building it is just minutes."
What distinguishes a Kiva building from an older warehouse is the 1.2 million square foot facilities don't have aisles, allowing Amazon to pack even more inventory into the space. Berman said Amazon has been able to increase its capacity by as much as 50 percent by nixing the aisles.
The Kiva robots' stealth size and strength allow them to move diligently underground, picking up shelves that can weigh as much as 750-pounds and bringing them to human "pickers" to expedite the order.
The human picker can tell from an LED screen which item they are picking up and in which bin it can be found on the shelf. They then take the items and put them in a tote where they are then sent to more humans who work on packing and shipping, while the Kiva robot returns the shelf.
Berman said he expects Amazon's robot army to be a complement to the company's employees this holiday season, allowing Amazon to dominate the holiday shopping season.
"The Kiva units are not replacing humans," Berman said. "They’re just changing the job humans do."
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