The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Technical decision · 2017-2023
Coupang sent robot shelves to workers, cutting pick workload 65%
Instead of workers walking to shelves, Coupang's robot shelves deliver to workers, cutting total workload about 65% at its Daegu centre.
Coupang
the move
Conventional warehouses made pickers walk; Coupang's Daegu Fulfillment Center inverted it. Worker-to-shelf became shelf-to-worker, with robot shelves (AGVs) travelling to a person who stays put.
The Daegu site is a roughly 300 billion won (about $237 million) investment, one of the largest distribution centres in Asia at 330,000 square metres and home to the most logistics robots in Korea. About 1,000 robots work there, including Sorting Robots that read a waybill and drop each package into the right regional box in seconds.
Robot shelves follow floor QR codes, and a sensor lights the exact item to pick, so accuracy and speed rise together. The company said AGVs reduced total workload by about 65% and freed workers from the physical burden of the walk.
why it works
- Moving shelves instead of people removes the biggest cost in picking: transit time between items.
- QR-code floor navigation keeps the route precise and cheap to change, so the layout can be redesigned without rewiring.
- A fixed workstation with a light-guided pick cuts mispicks, which are expensive downstream.
- Robots work 24/7/365, so peak days no longer need a burst of temporary pickers.
what transfers
In warehouse work, the constraint is human walking time. Let machines do the travelling and keep humans at a fixed work station; the same human can pick far more per hour.
what came after
Coupang said the automation created about 2,500 new jobs (auto-technology managers, warehousing staff and pickers at pack stations) rather than eliminating them. The Daegu centre's Goods-To-Person model became the template as Coupang extended Rocket Delivery and opened similar smart fulfilment centres at home and abroad.
references
- Robot shelves, packagers behind Coupang's ultra-fast Rocket Delivery
- Robots zip, lumber and motor around Coupang's new warehouse
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