Walking the aisles to gather an order

The walking was most of the job, since a picker in a large distribution centre covered many kilometres a shift, and the mobile robot took the kilometres rather than the hands. Grasping is the part that held out, because a warehouse holds every shape, weight and stiffness there is. Amazon put a force-sensing arm called Vulcan into two sites in 2025 and states that it can handle about three quarters of the items it meets. People still take the awkward quarter, pack, deal with exceptions and damaged goods, count stock and keep the fleet running, and the building itself is now laid out around what the machines can reach.