FedEx robot workers trial in North Carolina is big success

  • FedEx has successfully tested several robot workers at a North Carolina facility
  • The company plans to expand the use of automated workers in the near future
  • An explosion was reported at a FedEx distribution hub outside of San Antonio

By Steve Longo

Published: | Updated:

For employees at one of FedEx’s shipping hubs in North Carolina, the rise of the machines is occurring right before their very eyes.

A new report by the New York Times has shed some light on the successful test run of five automated ‘tuggers’ at FedEx’s Kernersville, North Carolina distribution hub that the company aims to utilize more in the future in its facilities. The news comes just as reports of an explosion were reported at FedEx’s shipping center in Schertz, Texas, just outside of San Antonio. In recent days, the city of Austin, Texas has been gripped by a series of explosions that officials have described as the work of an unknown serial bomber.

The RT 4500 autonomous tuggers, named Dusty, Lucky, Ned, Jefe and El Guapo, were constructed by Vecna Technologies, an advanced robotics company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. All five have worked with FedEx since 2017 and will eventually replace some 25 jobs in the facility.

FedEx successfully tested five robotic 'tuggers' at a Kernersville, North Carolina facility

FedEx successfully tested five robotic 'tuggers' at a Kernersville, North Carolina facility

FedEx officials have stated that the role of the robotic workers is to complement rather than compete with human employees for jobs at the company’s facilities.

‘I understand people thinking this will take their jobs,’ the Kernersville shipping center’s senior manager Galen Steele said. ‘But over time, they realize that is not the case at all.’

Steele also stated that: ‘Everyone will have a job. It just might be in a different place.’

FedEx’s push for automated tuggers at its facilities was reportedly spurred on by the rapid growth of e-commerce in recent years that forced the company to handle and ship out much larger, less traditional items such as canoes and car tires that don’t always fit on standard conveyor belts.

Rather than have human employees handle these larger, cumbersome objects, they’re simply loaded onto a robotic tugger and automatically hauled around the shipping facility. New advancements have meant that workers who used to drive around the tuggers now simply have to pack them and press a button that sends the automated hauler on its way as it navigates the facility using cameras and sensors.

The robotic tuggers, while groundbreaking technology in their own right, are simply the latest technological innovation at FedEx’s Kernersville hub where over 80 per cent of all boxes are transferred around the facility using an automated system of advanced scanners, sorters and conveyor belts that don’t require any human employees to run directly.

The test run of the five automated tuggers is just the first step in FedEx’s plan to roll them out much more broadly. 20 additional robotic tuggers are being tested at the Kernersville facility, according to Geek.com, with the company’s ultimate goal being to phase out its existing tuggers and replace them with the fully-automated version at the Kernersville hub. The program, if ultimately successful, may be rolled out to other FedEx distribution centers across the United States.

FedEx’s Kernersville shipping center spans some 630,000 square-feet (192,024 square meters). The facility employs some 1,300 people and creates approximately 100 new positions every year.

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