Will robots replace human warehouse pickers?

New York Public Library has installed a huge warehouse shelving system in its basement to house 1.5 million books. This specialised operation needs

teams of expert human workers, but in other business sectors, there is a trend towards robot workers replacing humans.
Over one and a half million books owned by the New York Public Library were previously stored at a location away from the main library. A huge operation has begun to return the books to the basement of the main library.
Over the summer, they have been loaded onto many trucks to transport them back to the main library where a team of workers catalogue, barcode and store the books on miles of basement warehouse shelving. The operation is scheduled to take nine months and will involve many human workers.
Cataloguing and storing huge numbers of books in this way is difficult to mechanise, but in other warehouses, the trend is for automation. Amazon has acquired the robotic company Kiva to develop machines that pick goods and deliver them to packers for shipment.
InVia Robotics has taken this a step further by creating a robot system that replaces both human pickers and packers, putting goods directly into shipping boxes. Unlike other automated systems, InVia Robots utilise vision systems that use existing warehouse shelving systems without the need for modifications.
Whether you need shelving for robots or human workers, Greenoaks specialises in supplying modular warehouse shelving systems and pallet racking to suit all businesses, large or small.