优衣库仓库将用机器人替代人类员工

At a warehouse in Tokyo's Ariake district once mainly staffed by people, robots are now doing the work of inspecting and sorting the clothing housed there by Japanese retailer Uniqlo.

东京的一家仓库从以人为员工转换为由机器人来对日本零售商优衣库存在那里的衣物进行筛查和分类。

 

The company recently remodeled the existing warehouse with an automated system created in partnership with Daifuku, a provider of material handling systems. Now that the system is running, the company revealed during a walkthrough of the new facility, Uniqlo has been able to cut staff at the warehouse by 90%. The warehouse can now also operate 24 hours a day.

该公司最近与大福公司合作在仓库里配备了全自动系统，而大福公司提供货物搬运系统。该系统运营以后，公司在新设备展示会中表示优衣库可以裁掉仓库里90%的员工，而且仓库现在（投入机器人以后）可以一天24小时运行。

 

 

The Japan News described how the automation works:

日本新闻媒体对自动化操作情况做了如下描述：

 

The robotic system is designed to transfer products delivered to the warehouse by truck, read electronic tags attached to the products and confirm their stock numbers and other information.

机器人系统是设计用来转移卡车送到仓库的货物，阅读贴在货物上的电子标签，并确认库存数量和其他信息的。

 

When shipping, the system wraps products placed on a conveyor belt in cardboard and attaches labels to them. Only a small portion of work at the warehouse needs to be done by employees, the company said.

运货时该系统会将放置在传送带上的货品用纸箱打包，再贴上标签。公司表示仓库中只有少量工作需要由员工完成。

 

The Tokyo warehouse is just a first step in a larger plan for Uniqlo's parent company, Fast Retailing. It has announced a strategic partnership with Daifuku with the goal of automating all Fast Retailing’s brand warehouses in Japan and overseas. Uniqlo plans to invest 100 billion yen (about $887 million) in the project over an unspecified timeframe. (The Japan News reported that it costs about 1 billion to 10 billion yen to automate an existing warehouse.)

这仅仅是东京仓库的第一步，它还为优衣库的总公司迅销公司制定了更大的计划，并已宣布将和大福公司形成战略伙伴关系，目标是在日本和海外所有迅销公司旗下品牌仓库实现自动化操作。优衣库计划对该项目投资1千亿日元（约8.87亿美元），投资时间待定。（日本新闻报道称为一个现有仓库配备全自动系统需要约10亿-100亿日元）。

 

 

 

Uniqlo believes the system will help it minimize storage costs and, importantly, deliver products faster around the world. The company has set a target of 3 trillion yen (about $26.6 billion) in annual revenue. Last year its revenue was about 1.86 trillion yen.

优衣库认为该系统有助于将仓储成本降到最低，并且重要的是，它能将货品更快地运送到世界各地。该公司设定了年收入3万亿日元（约266亿美元）的目标，去年年收入约为1.86万亿日元。

 

Actually, this is not the first time for this brand to try something like this.

其实这并不是该品牌首次进行类似尝试。

 

Indeed on November, 4th, 2016 at Marché Saint-Germain in Paris, the Japanese brand Uniqlo 'hired' a new staff member : a humanoid robot.

2016年11月4日优衣库就在巴黎圣日耳曼“雇”了一位新员工：一个仿真机器人。

 

It leads us to an essential question that the world already had in mind while the labour force were replaced by machines in many industries : Will robots replace every human's job ?

这使我们联想到了一个全世界都在考虑的本质问题，虽然在很多产业中机器已经取代了劳动力，但机器人会取代人类所有类型的工作吗？

 

 

 

Actually you may already have heard of this robot called Pepper as it was first disclosed in 2014 (but launched in 2015) that French company Aldebaran Robotics (bought over by the Japanese company SoftBank) had created this robot.

其实你可能听说过2014年首次公开（于2015年上市）机器人Pepper的法国公司Aldebaran Robotics（后被日本SoftBank公司收购）已经做出了这样的机器人。

 

This robot has the capacity of perceiving the main human emotions from which it can change what it says, based on the emotion of its interlocutor.

这款机器人能感知人类的情绪，并根据与其对话的人的情绪改变要说的话。

 

In big cities in Japan, it is almost common to see Pepper or any other robots in the entry of some stores but it is still rare in France or even in any other country of Europe.

在日本的大城市，在商店入口处几乎都能看见Pepper或其他机器人，但在法国甚至其他欧洲国家仍然不多见。