It is called “the hive,” or “the grid” — a huge structure that fills a warehouse the size of 7 football fields, and seems to be a huge chessboard populated mostly by robots. There are thousands of them, each the size and shape of a washing machine, and they wheel about, night and day, moving groceries. Their job is to be cheaper and more efficient than humans.
The hive-grid is the creation of Ocado, a British online-only supermarket that’s made a name for itself designing highly automated warehouses and selling the tech to other grocery chains. Ocado’s latest operation processes 3.5 million items or around 65,000 orders every week. It’s an example of the wave of automation hitting countries around the world. The tasks being undertaken by Ocado’s bots are so basic they’re best described by simple verbs — “lifting,” “moving,” “sorting” — and that means they exist in various forms in a range of industries.
Imagine a huge machine, with groceries going in one end and shopping orders coming out the other. Humans do the unpacking and packing, while in the middle, robots sort and rearrange this vast inventory 24 hours a day. Individually, the robots aren’t intelligent; they don’t make decisions for themselves. But their actions are all coordinated by a central computer. This means the robots can be used as efficiently as possible. If you want to pick a typical, 50-item Ocado order, they will help each other. A group of robots can come together in a huddle, split up, and pick that order in a matter of minutes. In a traditional warehouse where items are scattered around on distant shelves, this process can take hours.
Ocado has made deals with supermarket chains in France, Canada, and Sweden to upgrade their warehouses. Such deals should make it easier for these firms to offer online grocery shopping (the UK is a relatively early adopter of this trend) and will help stave off fears of technologically savvy rivals (such as Amazon’s Whole Foods) muscling in on their territory.
Nothing is perfect, of course, and we note that major fires have broken out at Ocado warehouses –the latest this past July when 3 robots crashed into one another.
Nonetheless, your students will enjoy this 3 minute video of one of Ocado’s automated warehouses.