Recently, United Parcel Service Inc. opened its biggest warehouse, a sprawling 20-acre complex outside of Louisville, Kentucky. By the end of the next year, the massive package handling company intends to outfit the $79 million facility with over 3,000 robots to do manual labor-intensive jobs like lifting.
With this level of automation, the company can successfully run the warehouse with as little as 200 workers, although this number is expected to eventually rise.
Big operators like UPS and GXO Logistics, Inc., are using the allure of automation to draw customers away from older companies that still rely more on human labour. Officials at UPS sing praises of the machines. They say robots increase the speed and accuracy of processing the orders, keep better track of inventory and save space by fetching products that have bene stacked up higher.
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