00:00This robot snuck up beside me.
00:03Uh-oh.
00:04This is one of the primary sites
00:06where Amazon designs, tests, and builds its fleet
00:09of more than 750,000 robots.
00:12We wanted to have this visual of the engineers
00:15being able to look out the windows and say,
00:16I can see my product, I built it, I designed it here,
00:19I can go downstairs, I'm in with the test engineers.
00:22And it sounds sort of like R2-D2.
00:25The decade-plus, multi-billion-dollar investment
00:27into robotics is key to Amazon's efficiency goals,
00:30especially as the delivery behemoth
00:32faces accusations about workers' safety
00:35in its fulfillment centers.
00:36Before we start talking about productivity and efficiency,
00:39we start with safety.
00:40As we think about the opportunity
00:42within the fulfillment centers to innovate and improve,
00:45we tend to look at the most challenging tasks,
00:47lifting, manipulating, moving things.
00:50So will Amazon's big robotics bet pay off?
00:53As humans work side-by-side with robots,
00:55what will this mean for Amazon's workers
00:58and the future of its shipping business?
01:07We are about an hour outside of Boston
01:09at Amazon's Robotics Hub.
01:11This is a relatively new facility
01:12they bought a few years ago.
01:14We're here to look at Amazon's unique approach to robotics,
01:17which is to have the entire lifecycle of the project
01:20and of the products under one roof,
01:22from development to testing to manufacturing.
01:25So Joe, we're about an hour outside of Boston.
01:27What's the history of this facility?
01:29We opened this facility about three years ago.
01:31And you can see on this road,
01:32there's a number of Amazon facilities.
01:34Our mother site was the original site,
01:36which is the BOSS 12 up in North Reading.
01:38And we'd grown quite a bit
01:39and we wanted to open another development site.
01:41And so we landed in Westboro, Massachusetts.
01:43The talent in here is rich
01:44from previous generations of technology
01:46that had been up and down the corridor here.
01:48We built this about three years ago.
01:50You know, when we opened it,
01:51we were a little worried, you know,
01:52would they come?
01:53And they have come,
01:54which is pretty exciting.
01:55Amazon has two robotics sites in the greater Boston area.
01:59The North Reading location
02:00was part of the acquisition of Kiva in 2012,
02:02which then became Amazon Robotics.
02:04What's unique about this space
02:06is how many roles it houses under one roof,
02:08from designers to scientists to testing engineers.
02:12Can I drive one?
02:12Yeah, absolutely.
02:13It's the result of a decision to not outsource
02:15and maintain control of the supply chain.
02:17They seem to be communicating their own little language.
02:20This one's got a bin.
02:21This one I'm controlling.
02:23This one has a mind of its own.
02:24I don't really know what it's doing,
02:25but it's chirping a lot,
02:26so it seems to be happy.
02:27I pursue this strategy of vertical integration,
02:30of building every aspect of the supply chain
02:33and manufacturing the robots.
02:34Well, one, speed, right?
02:36The thing is having end-to-end control for vertical
02:39is we think gives us speed.
02:42And every time you start decoupling things,
02:44you're going to lose that speed.
02:45And then you're also going to lose the insight
02:48that the other processes have
02:50or the other functions have.
02:51By having it all together,
02:53that feedback loop is super tight.
02:55And the second thing is innovation, right?
02:57We get lots of great insight from those other teams.
03:00So the teams that are building the manufacturing teams
03:02have a large voice into the design cycle
03:05and they influence our design and impact our design.
03:07The folks that are deploying it also here
03:10have a large voice into the impact.
03:13This is where a lot of the software development is done
03:15for these products.
03:15And you can start with an idea on a whiteboard.
03:18Nine months later,
03:19you can see it all of a sudden being in a prototype
03:22in the test lab.
03:2318 months later, you see your product rolling off the line.
03:25That is like super empowering.
03:27When new candidates come in and think,
03:29what's the Amazon special sauce in robotics?
03:32This is it.
03:33Amazon is number seven
03:34on this year's most innovative companies list.
03:36And its robotics program is helping lead the charge
03:38on innovation.
03:39Multiple robots are developed or tested here in Westboro,
03:42fulfilling different roles from lifting to sorting
03:45to getting out of the way of humans.
03:47We're going to see your favorite robot.
03:48Proteus, yeah.
03:49When we started that, there was a team of six.
03:51And often where innovation gets stifled
03:53is when you overstaff a program too early.
03:56And sometimes the best path to success
03:58is to keep it super small with highly talented people
04:01who can move at a pace that a larger team will slow us down.
04:05Is the main thing that you're working on these arms
04:07and testing out the Proteus?
04:08So Proteus is my specialty.
04:10These are very complicated systems.
04:12And are you working on the engineering side as well?
04:13Or is it more on the testing
04:15once it's actually out here in production?
04:17So my particular job is with testing.
04:20We'd rather find problems here, get them fixed,
04:22and then push the fixed versions with the improvements
04:24and updates out to production
04:26in order to make the system even better.
04:28What's it like working alongside robots?
04:30Oh, it's great.
04:31I really enjoy this.
04:32I've been doing this for quite a while.
04:33So I've really, really taken a liking to the robots,
04:36both the arms, the drive units,
04:38the combination of the two of them working together.
04:41Ah, it's really fun.
04:43Robotics are going to fundamentally change
04:45what their jobs are, right?
04:46What tasks they're doing every day.
04:47So how do you think about that?
04:48And that's super exciting too.
04:50It's creating new opportunities.
04:51I think we've all seen,
04:52there's always this tension between
04:54how does this impact people?
04:56And I think we've always seen that
04:57automation and technology breakthroughs
04:59create opportunities and create new jobs.
05:01And I think it's hard to argue
05:02that Amazon has not been a great job creator
05:05in almost every domain you can think about.
05:08But automation is still inevitably going to come
05:10with concerns over worker replacement.
05:12And I know Amazon has invested a lot,
05:14more than a billion dollars in this process of upskilling
05:17or teaching new skills to workers.
05:19Do you think upskilling is the solution
05:22to fears of replacement?
05:24There are two things.
05:25We continue to grow at a very high rate.
05:27And so the number of facilities,
05:29the number of jobs we're creating
05:31is been exciting to see.
05:33And then the second part is, yeah,
05:34the upskilling is creating new,
05:35exciting jobs and opportunities
05:37for potentially a group of people
05:38that wouldn't have that opportunity.
05:39And so I think in both dimensions,
05:41we're going to see growth.
05:42And it's not just upskilling that's front of mind.
05:45A Senate committee report released in December
05:47reported conditions in Amazon warehouses were unsafe
05:50and prioritized speed over safety.
05:52How much does safety play a role
05:53in your thinking about how robotics
05:55are going to play into Amazon's process?
05:58It's front and center.
05:59Before we start talking about productivity and efficiency,
06:01we start with safety.
06:03As we think about the opportunity
06:05within the fulfillment centers to innovate and improve,
06:08we tend to look at the most challenging tasks,
06:10lifting, manipulating, moving things.
06:13We're excited about what we've done
06:15and we have a new facility
06:16with some of our newer generation technology
06:18that is 10x the automation of our previous generation.
06:22Amazon is known for its relentless pursuit
06:24of efficiency and productivity.
06:26Of course, they're always trying to get packages
06:28to customers faster and faster.
06:30Robotics is really key to making that happen.
06:32At the same time, safety is a huge concern for Amazon.
06:35Joe talked about how a lot of worker functions,
06:38and especially the worker functions
06:40like repetitive movements that often lead to injuries
06:42are being replaced by robots.
06:44And I think Amazon acknowledges this
06:46and they put a lot of investment into upskilling
06:48or this process of basically teaching workers new skills
06:52and being able to give them new jobs.
06:54I mean, whether that's successful, I think,
06:55remains to be seen and you'll still have fears
06:57of what replacement looks like for workers.
06:59But you can see that robotics really will be the future
07:02in trying to replace a lot of the different areas
07:05that we do associate with workplace injuries and risk.
07:08I asked Joe whether he did see a future
07:10in which the warehouses or the fulfillment centers
07:12would be fully automated.
07:13And I think Amazon hasn't even fully thought that through,
07:16but I think even for a company as innovative as Amazon,
07:19it's still unclear what this might look like
07:2110 years down the road.
07:22The great thing about Amazon,
07:24it so operates in many ways like a startup,
07:27has a startup mentality of speed.
07:29You're able to innovate at a speed
07:31and you don't get bogged down with bureaucracy
07:33over sometimes a big company.
07:35I mean, there've been challenging times
07:36when I was sure this thing was gonna work in some way
07:39and it didn't, and the disappointment of your idea
07:42just didn't pan out.
07:44But to see the impact when you go globally,
07:45our products have made to our associates,
07:47that flywheel of driving customer selection,
07:49lower prices and speed, I get to see it real time.
07:52And so that's been pretty,
07:53it's like a once in a lifetime opportunity.
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