Here we go again...robots

[Dracula]

A couple of things. As far as those mobile robots go, I find it hard to picture humans and wheeled robots co-existing on the same sidewalks. It's one thing for these things to steal our jobs, its quite another to think broke, unemployed Americans are going to play nice with these things. After all, this is a country that believes national ID's are evil, that the government is going to steal their guns and that an incompetent, egomaniac will bring manufacturing jobs back from the 60's, 70's and 80's. We're a paranoid lot, with itchy trigger fingers.

They probably should arm those robots, to protect their investment. It seems to me, just by looking at them, that my 12" sledgehammer could cripple one of those things. And I'm a gentleman. But not everyone is. And even gentlemen can be pushed to desperation.

 

[km3]

Is the bonus paid to new PT employees?

Sort of...everybody hired in 2016 got it if they met the attendance conditions. I was so angry about that. As though 2015 hires such as myself were making so much more than 2016 hires that we didn't need it.

We went from the NGSS to the new thing that scans and dumps them in their correct bag. I think it's called a tilt tray sorter. The link is similar but obviously much larger. Whatever it's called it can sort some serious packages.

My bad. I don't get up to small sort much. I thought the tilt tray was part of what was considered NGSS. We definitely have a tilt tray. It's helped small sort run a lot faster and smoother than it did before. I'm on the sort aisle and the feed almost never shuts off now, and small sort is one of the first areas done rather than one of the last areas done. But it did increase the daily staffing plan for small sort for some reason.

 

[HEFFERNAN]

They are not going to use robots to deliver the packages.
They WILL use a self-driving vehicle to park in front of the house and pay a person half the driver rate to take package from truck to house.
That is UPS's endgame, to eliminate "skilled" positions.
The auto industry laughed when "robots" were going to weld and manufacture cars. They don't laugh anymore.

Inside the hubs, as long as the label is facing up, machines can sort a package from trailer to package car easily.
The infrastructure is going to cost UPS billions and won't make stockholders happy for awhile.

 

[Two Tokes]

Starship robots try out deliveries on SF sidewalks

Good luck with that COD Make sure you follow ORION

 

[Rick Ross]

They are not going to use robots to deliver the packages.
They WILL use a self-driving vehicle to park in front of the house and pay a person half the driver rate to take package from truck to house.
That is UPS's endgame, to eliminate "skilled" positions.
The auto industry laughed when "robots" were going to weld and manufacture cars. They don't laugh anymore.

Inside the hubs, as long as the label is facing up, machines can sort a package from trailer to package car easily.
The infrastructure is going to cost UPS billions and won't make stockholders happy for awhile.

I used to run Fanuc robots used in manafacturing. Those would be the same or similar to what you see in auto plants welding or painting.

Those robots have to be touched off of a starting point and have almost no logic... You program them and they go exactly where you tell them...Nowhere else. They were roughly $100k each with fixturing factored in.

I can't imagine a robot that can actually adapt to different situations happening in the near future. When they do happen I bet the costs would be crazy high, especially when factoring in maintenance and babysitting them throughout the day.