What Happened to the Robots at FedEx?

At its Memphis World Hub, FedEx upgraded a new automated sorting facility where, within its  1.3 million square feet, it handles 56,000 packages per hour. The technology within the facility includes a six-sided package scanner, new weighing and dimensioning systems, and space dedicated to moving bulky, hard-to-handle shipments.

For the past several years, facility upgrades and experiments involved robotics like parcel-sorting arms and trailer-loading robots. Yet, although the Memphis hub facility is automated to increase throughput and efficiency, robots are nowhere to be found.

The issue is that robots are good with small packages and loads. This facility requires heavy-duty, flexible capabilities combined with speed—and robots aren’t as adept as people… yet.