This one shows the picking station, where the humans take things out of bins and put them in other bins. A computer-controlled laser pointer points to the item to be taken out, and a light shows where the item goes, and a bar code scanner checks on the human. The job takes about two minutes to learn, and full productivity for new humans is achieved in about half an hour. There is no possibility of promotion. Machines should think. People should work.

Kiva is a huge success. Before Amazon bought them, they had about 20% of online order fulfillment in the US. It's higher now, with Amazon using them. Kiva is so successful because it's so simple to install. All it needs is a big flat floor with some bar code stickers, a supply of cheap shelving units, and the robots. All the robots are small and interchangeable, so they don't have to be repaired on-site and there's no need for expensive on-site technicians and repair shops. So converting to Kiva robots is fast, cheap, and easy.

Automated warehousing isn't new, but it used to be a lot more complicated and far more custom. The older systems involved conveyors, machines that moved on tracks, extensive site-specific and product-specific engineering, and good onsite maintenance. Here's a state of the art version of a classic automated storage and retrieval system in a frozen foods warehouse. (The frozen foods industry has been heavily into warehouse automation for decades, because they work in a sub-freezing environment.) This is impressive, but look at the sheer complexity and number of moving parts involved. All those belts, motors, lifts, and sensors, and all dedicated - if any of that stuff breaks, it has to be fixed, not just bypassed. With Kiva, any dead robots can be pushed out of the way and dealt with later, off-site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuvrP1QKsdk

Here's a direct competitor to Kiva. This approach, with tiny robot cranes, is less successful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-G70CivfLM

Another competitor. This one uses an overhead robotic crane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peef_5W9nOQ

Compare the mechanical simplicity of the Kiva system.

Kiva was started by one of the executives of Webvan. (Remember Webvan - first dot-com boom?) Webvan offered same-day delivery a decade ago. It was popular. It just cost too much to provide that service. If they could only get rid of all those warehouse employees and complex warehouse machinery... Well, they did. Most of them.

But humans are still needed to take things out of one bin and put them into another. For that, there's the Amazon Bin-Picking Challenge:

http://amazonpickingchallenge.org/

Win up to $26,000 and eliminate 30,000 jobs at Amazon. Entries for the first round closed in October.