I spent a number of years working on software at Amazon in the Picking and storage space. This truly is the Holy Grail in the sense that I'm not actually sure what they want is possible/real.
There is a trade-off between storage density and ease of picking. This is true for humans as well as robots. An example: Open a drawer in your kitchen. If it's full as possible in an unorganized fashion, you'll often struggle to even locate the item you're looking for. And once you find it, you need to carefully move other items around to get it out.
Now, empty that drawer and put back 1/3 of the items, carefully organized. Now you can find and grab anything quickly! Even a robot could! ... But you need 3 times as many drawers in your kitchen.
Your messy kitchen drawer is a pretty close parallel to a typical Amazon storage bin.
Set aside the question of robot speed (they're slow), the real question is how much less storage density is needed for the robot to function. Giving up storage density means a smaller selection in each warehouse, which increases shipping costs- the item you want isn't as near to you anymore- or it demands a lot more warehouses, which are expensive to build and operate.
Shipping costs dominate their overall cost to get you what you ordered. Fully automating picking at the cost of reduced storage density is a net loss.
There is a trade-off between storage density and ease of picking. This is true for humans as well as robots. An example: Open a drawer in your kitchen. If it's full as possible in an unorganized fashion, you'll often struggle to even locate the item you're looking for. And once you find it, you need to carefully move other items around to get it out.
Now, empty that drawer and put back 1/3 of the items, carefully organized. Now you can find and grab anything quickly! Even a robot could! ... But you need 3 times as many drawers in your kitchen.
Your messy kitchen drawer is a pretty close parallel to a typical Amazon storage bin.
Set aside the question of robot speed (they're slow), the real question is how much less storage density is needed for the robot to function. Giving up storage density means a smaller selection in each warehouse, which increases shipping costs- the item you want isn't as near to you anymore- or it demands a lot more warehouses, which are expensive to build and operate.
Shipping costs dominate their overall cost to get you what you ordered. Fully automating picking at the cost of reduced storage density is a net loss.