Amazon announced a new robotic system dubbed Sequoia, designed to let employees pick and place products in their ergonomic “power zones,” eliminating the reaching and squatting common in its current approach.
Sequoia includes robotic arms, gantry systems, and a mobile shelving unit that transports totes to a new employee workstation, according to a post describing the system by Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics. The station presents products to employees in the totes in the zone between mid-thigh and mid-chest.
Amazon’s current workstations deliver products to employees in tall mobile shelving units with cubbies that often require them to reach far above their heads or bend down to pick or place items.
It’s part of a broader effort by the company to use robotics to improve warehouse safety, amid growing scrutiny of injuries and safety practices at Amazon’s fulfillment, sortation, and delivery facilities.
Currently in operation at an Amazon fulfillment center in Houston, the Sequoia system also works in conjunction with Sparrow, the Amazon robot that can automatically pick and place individual items in totes.
The company also announced plans to start testing a bipedal humanoid robot from Agility Robotics of Corvallis, Ore., to move empty totes at one of its facilities south of Seattle. Amazon is an investor in Agility.
Agility recently announced plans to mass-produce Digit robots at a manufacturing facility in Salem, Ore.
The Wall Street Journal first reported both pieces of news Wednesday morning.
Amazon made the announcements in advance of an annual event Wednesday called “Delivering The Future,” at a warehouse in Sumner, Wash., where it will be showing its latest advances in robotics and transportation to reporters who have flown in from around the country and the world.
