[JohnsonB]

This article: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/09/smallbusiness/kiva_robots/in... says that 1000 robots costs $15-20 million, not the $500 million that 500k a piece would run. Also what is there to indicate such a hefty need for engineering oversight? 20 engineers constantly overseeing the machines sounds like they are either constantly breaking down, or need a significant amount of custom programming per unit as upkeep, both of which just sounds like a quality control issue on Kiva's side. It makes sense that there's a lot of initial planning/programming for each installation, but I'd expect it to be mostly self-running after that. I would be curious about the energy needs per unit, though. They seem to be carrying around more weight per package shipped than with a human picker carrying just what goes in one package, but then again their use of energy might be more efficient than humans.

[sokoloff]

1000 robots needing just 30 minutes of preventative maintenance per week is 500 hours of PM a week. That sounds like about the amount of PM a staff of 20 engineers can supply, once you account for admin, PTO, training, travel between robots, and doing the actual work.

Engineer does not solely mean "one who creates software".

[Game_Ender]

The word you are looking for is "technician".

[scarmig]

Well, everyone's an engineer nowadays. My company has "custom service engineers." =)

[Intermernet]

I may be old school, but I don't regard anyone as an engineer without a degree in engineering.

Other wise, they're a hacker ;-)

[schiffern]

>I would be curious about the energy needs per unit, though.

An 180 lb person speed walking at 5 mph burns 650 Calories/hr. That's 80¢/shift in electricity.

But that's not the big savings. Humans need lights and air-conditioning – robots don't. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdd6sQ8Cbe0#t=5m40s