In Warehouses of the Future, Robots Do the Walking

Warehouse workers who used to tire themselves out walking from one end of a sprawling building to the other have new tools to do their jobs more quickly and with a lot less shoe leather: robots.

Companies such as Fetch Robotics Inc. in San Jose are designing robots that work alongside people in warehouses, a growing industry as people shift spending from stores to websites like Amazon.com. The rise of e-commerce and faster delivery times are pressuring logistics companies to get orders out the door as quickly as possible. Fetch's robots help make warehouses more efficient because people can focus on finding items on shelves and in bins and let robots carry them to areas where they are packed and shipped.