Fedex is making news by employing robots to load and unload trailers.
FedEx says that trailer loading remains one of the most physically demanding and challenging workflows in parcel logistics, but has historically been difficult to automate using traditional solutions. However, the workflow is fundamental to FedEx operations since the company loads tens of thousands of trailers daily across its U.S. network.
Through its collaboration with Dexterity, FedEx said it is now establishing not only how physical AI performs in trailer loading operations, but also how the technology integrates into broader hub operations, including destination planning, trailer assignment, maintenance, and workforce processes.
Dexterity says its platform uses the company’s “Foresight” world model for physical AI to make real-time decisions in dynamic environments., and to control its dual-armed superhumanoid robot called “Mech,” that is designed for heavy industrial operations while remaining compact enough to operate inside trailers.
There's more at the link.
That is (or should be) yet another wake-up call to the trades unions representing US transport and cargo handling workers. Slowly but surely, their members' jobs are being taken over by automation. Amazon is already using a largely robotic workforce at many of its biggest and busiest customer service warehouses and hubs, and where Fedex goes, UPS and other shippers will go there too (if they haven't done so already). I suspect most blue-collar workers have not given enough thought to what they'll do for a living if jobs like those are automated out from under them.
The bigger worry, to me, is the enormous gap between automation in first-world economies versus what's happening in China. Consider this chart (click the image for a larger view):
The article accompanying that chart says, in part:
The data covers only physical industrial robots, not software or consumer technologies.
The chart shows that in 2011, China, the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea were all installing similar numbers of these robots. However, in the decade that followed, the paths of these countries diverged. By 2023, annual installations in China had risen to 276,000 robots, a twelvefold increase.
Over the same period, installations in the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea also increased, but much more slowly: none of them even doubled. The United States, which saw the second-largest rise, went from 21,000 new installations in 2011 to 38,000 in 2023.
These figures refer to new robots installed each year; that is, annual additions to the existing stock of robots. The IFR also publishes data on the total number of robots in operation, and by this measure, China also had the largest installed base, at around 1.76 million robots in 2023.
Again, more at the link.
The USA's total installed base of industrial robots was less than 400,000 units at the end of 2024. At the same time, China had more than two million units in service. The gap has only widened since then, and at a faster pace, too.
Those who say that we need to revive US manufacturing aren't looking hard enough at those numbers. I don't believe it's possible any longer to rejuvenate US manufacturing in the traditional sense. If we focus on technological sophistication, that's a different story: but China's working on that just as hard as we are, if not more so. Yes, I've read recent reports that China's economy is in trouble, and that they may be facing recession or depression: but that doesn't take away from the immense technological lead they've built up in manufacturing.
This latest news from Fedex is a step forward for the company. However, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what China is already doing. American companies had better innovate a lot faster if they want to avoid being swept away by a Chinese-led tsunami in the business world. That's not just a problem here, of course: Europe is even worse off than we are. Trouble is, I don't think enough of our private sector business leaders are paying it enough attention. They're focused on their next quarterly results, not whether they'll still exist in a few years' time . . .
Let's give the last word to Dire Straits.
Peter
To your point about the Unions, I've seen where the unions will allow the company to go out of business, instead of "giving up a fraction of their power to the company." So don't expect the unions to do anything to help alleviate the situation.
ReplyDeleteWorked in an open shop state. One guy hired on kept belittling us for not unionizing - we'd get paid sooo much more. He then listed a number of jobs at other locations and the pay he got. When asked why he wasn't working at any of those places anymore he said the companies all went out of business...and he couldn't see the connection.
DeleteThe workers at FedEx who are being replaced by robots WERE paying social security, Medicare and income taxes, the robots replacing them are capital expenditures by the company.
ReplyDeleteThis will be noticed,
Depends on what you call "industrial robots." Back in the '70's, P&H was manufacturing and selling automated warehouse systems like there was no tomorrow. The systems "picked and loaded" items from warehouse shelves into waiting trucks, following instructions from a computer. P&H (now a different name) had competitors, too.
ReplyDeleteSo I wonder if 400,000 is---perhaps--on the low, or very low side of installed systems.
So what does the PRC plan to do with its displaced labor force?
ReplyDeleteAfter an honest count of the Chinese population ... robots will be replacing people who were not really there?
DeleteSlowly at first, then fast. In the early 80's GM had a problem with human spot welders. They missed over half of the planned welds and did poorly on another quarter of welds. My engineering class was tasked to design a better way. We worked with Cincinnati Milicron and programed their robotic arms to weld. 25 machines replaced about 150 humans. The robotic arms first had 99.5 percent correct welds. After a review we improved that to 100 percent with planned PM. The humans we were told cost 28 dollars/hour for each worker. The real cost was the workers that had to repair the bad welds if possible or if not found before more work was done the trucks/SUVs were stripped of useable parts and the remainder of the trucks/SUVs were scrapped.
ReplyDeleteThe obsession with short term profits that our current executive class have will keep robotic replacements down for a while longer. Robots have high initial capital costs, which mean lower quarterly profits and lower bonuses. Robots also require a higher maintenance budget, along with skilled repair technicians that are currently in short supply.
ReplyDeleteThat said, automation will eventually do away with a large number of people's jobs. A high proportion of those jobs are unskilled labor being performed by illegals. We shall see what happens, should be interesting times in the Chinese sense.
Handwriting is on the wall, the question is, will they 'read' it???
ReplyDeleteThere are two things to remember about this data:
ReplyDelete1. NOBODY trusts Chinese data. It is ALL modified however it will make their government look better.
2. The vast majority of these "robots" are milling machines or lathes, not what most people think of as robots.
Jonathan