What Happens When You Click “Add to Cart?”

Featured Article by Robert Cordray, Independant Technology Author

You may have noticed that in the brief history of online shopping the time between placing an order and delivery has decreased dramatically. When I young, as I remember, the only way to get that ultra-rare hooded Cobra Commander action figure was to cut out a cardboard order form from the back of a cereal box, get eight dollars plus shipping and handling from Mom, mail it away and wait six to twelve weeks for the coveted item to arrive. Today, all it takes is a pressing “add to cart” and checking out. At this point, you business you are ordering from pulls funds from your online bank account, and you get your package in a few days. But do we really understand all the man (and machine) power that goes into this? From package tracking to 24/7 customer service, to the UPS man, theres so much that goes into every package. So how do they move items so quickly?

Enter: The Kiva
The complete answer is that advances in material handling systems have, with the help of information technologies, experienced a dramatic spike in technological development. That alone isn’t terribly surprising. After all, we expect that anything to do with computers should be twice as good this year as it was last year. What is surprising, however, is the little orange robot that has driven efficiency in order fulfillment through the roof. That robot is called Kiva, and this unassuming box-shaped rover has become a major work horse for companies like Amazon.

A Day in the Life of a Kiva Robot
When you click the “check out” button, one of hundreds or thousands of Kiva robots jumps into action. In a warehouse crawling with these little square-shaped movers all hustling along a virtual grid, your order sits on a shelf which is retrieved, lifted and carried to a human whose job it is to move it from the ‘inventory pod’ to the ‘delivery pod.’ The system locates the item, carries it to the human fulfillment worker, (who never takes a step), and directs him or her with a laser pointer to pick the correct item to take from the inventory pod, where and how many to place on the delivery pod. And it does this amid a frenzy of other Kiva robots all zipping about on the same grid, moving at high speeds just inches apart.

These computerized pack mules operate on the commands of a central computer which sends instructions to individual units. At the same time each individual unit sends information to the central command processor about changing conditions in the warehouse. If, for example, an individual robot encounters an obstacle on the warehouse floor it shares this information with all the other Kivas in the building. Once an obstacle has been spotted every robot in the warehouse will avoid it until another Kiva notices that it has been removed.

The Difference is Efficiency
Where the Kiva Mobile Fulfillment System excels is in sorting and moving products from where they are stored to where they are shipped expeditiously. Tiffany Kaiser of DailyTech.com writes that Kiva systems are more than ten times as efficient as a human warehouse staff. If that doesn’t convince you consider the fact that Amazon spent over $700 million on Kiva machines in 2012. They estimate that these orange dynamos will save the company an average of $500 million each year in warehouse inefficiency costs.

Life + Working Robots
It’s difficult to appreciate these machines until you’ve seen them in action, moving blocks around a warehouse like squares in a tile-puzzle. Even the designers struggle to understand how with what is called ‘Distributed Intelligence’ seasonal items are stored closer to the shipping zone at the appropriate time of year, and away from it in the off-season.

But even if you want your easter candy in November instead of March, you can be sure there’s a Kiva robot that remembers exactly where to find it.