Around this time, Paul Clarke, a software consultant with experience running tech startups, received a call from an Ocado recruiter. “I said, ‘Look, I’m really sorry, but I don’t want to work in retail,’” recalls Clarke, a lanky 60-year-old with the professorial demeanor of the Oxford PhD he once considered becoming. But when he toured Ocado’s warehouse, Clarke was impressed by its scale and complexity. Hatfield was a giant automation puzzle—exactly the sort of engineering problem he enjoyed cracking. “I fell in love,” he says.
机器人运行的网格实际上是巨大三维网格，也是装满食品的模块化笼子顶部。每次机器人停下，都用爪子状的装置伸进格子内部（员工称之为“蜂巢”），下降多达三层。爪子抓住白色塑料板条箱的侧面，里面装着水果、蔬菜、谷类等多达55000种物品，然后缩回机器人腹部。随后机器人将板条箱运到另一个格子区，放在仓库底层蜂箱下方的“分拣通道”。员工根据顾客订单从板条箱里拿出商品放进红色塑料箱，装上卡车送货。
Investors seem confident that Ocado can capitalize on the current moment; its shares have risen 28% since Feb. 28, even as global markets plummeted. The future, however, looks murkier. Ocado’s licensing deals require it to spend heavily upfront to build dozens of CFCs. Those obligations have left some analysts wondering if the company, which currently carries more than $750 million in debt, has taken on too much risk. And, even once the pandemic passes, an existential question looms: whether any grocer, even with Ocado’s robotic helping hand, can withstand the onslaught of the Everything Store and the Behemoth of Bentonville.
看机器人忙碌工作简直让人着迷。伦敦东郊厄里斯一处仓库里，一千多台机器人在巨大的钢铝网上滚动。每台机器人看起来很像办公室的复印机，顶上有短粗天线，还有个闪亮的霓虹绿色LED屏幕。每台机器人沿着各自的路线疾驰，提速效率堪比法拉利。机器人会瞬间停下，倒退，向左或向右行进，或是暂停片刻让其他机器人通过，宛若精心编排的电动芭蕾舞。
大概这段时间里，管理过科技初创企业的软件顾问保罗·克拉克接到了Ocado招聘人员的电话。“当时我说：‘很抱歉，但我不想做零售业。’” 60岁左右，身材瘦长的克拉克回忆说，虽然没去牛津大学读成博士，但一身学者风范。后来克拉克参观了Ocado的仓库，对其规模和复杂性印象尤为深刻。哈特菲尔德是自动化方面的巨大难题，正是他喜欢解决的工程问题。“我立刻爱上了。”他说。
Constant spending on improvements, meanwhile, was eating up cash. By 2007, Ocado’s revenues were $338 million, and galloping ahead at more than 20% annually. But the company was also running annual operating losses of more than $45 million—and spending tens of millions more to improve its CFC and purchase delivery trucks. It had more than $130 million of debt. At one point, John Lewis wrote its investment in the young online grocer down to zero.
机器人并不是克拉克唯一关心的事。在“垂直”农业领域也就是可持续农业的室内试验方面，Ocado进行了多项投资。公司收购了欧洲最大垂直农业公司Jones Foods的多数股权，投资成立了名叫Infinite Acres的合资企业，，以及一家名为80 Acres Urban Agriculture的美国初创企业，还有荷兰Priva Holdings公司。另一项投资是英国初创企业Karakuri，该公司创建了自动厨房，可准备好餐厅级别饭菜然后送货。克拉克说，Ocado设想是构建“整合食品机器”。他解释说，通过垂直耕作、准备食品和同一设施内配送，“可实现从农场到餐桌两个小时或更短的时间内完成。”
迫在眉睫的问题是，冠状病毒会不会阻碍Ocado扩张。疫情第一次爆发时，Ocado就遇到了困难，因为机器人关键零件在中国武汉制造，而武汉正是疫情爆发中心。（此后Ocado找了另一家供货商。）Ocado主要聘请本地工程团队，因此旅行禁令影响较小。在大多数地方，杂货行业和建筑均为必需行业，所以不必停工。今年3月，Ocado的首席财务官邓肯·塔顿·布朗对记者表示，Ocado将坚持完成海外分拣中心建设。不过他也承认，如果限行措施持续数月，时间表将受到拖累。
Ocado对杂货商的宣传强调了各项好处，还补充了令人信服的事实，即Ocado可协助搭建自动化基础设施，节省自行开发的精力和成本。
The robots, designed by Ocado in conjunction with U.K. robotics company Tharsus, are controlled by an internal 4G network with more base stations packed into less space than pretty much anywhere else on the planet. The network enables each robot to communicate with the software controlling it 10 times per second. At Erith, the hive generates four terabytes of data every day, all of which is fed back into a digital twin to refine the system.
类似疑虑并未影响Ocado筹集资金。2018年公司发行了1.87亿美元的股票。2019年2月，Ocado将50%的英国电商业务出售给英国零售商玛莎百货。对投资者来说，此次出售让Ocado定位更单纯，就是纯粹的技术平台，同时筹集了9.82亿美元。（玛莎百货也成为Ocado新的食品批发合作伙伴；Ocado与Waitrose的长期合同将于2020年底终止。）12月Ocado还出售了6.55亿美元的可转债。
Clarke signed on for a one-year gig, tasked with improving the system that controlled the flow of goods along Hatfield’s fast--moving conveyor belts. Ocado’s operation was so complex, Clarke says, that the only way to reengineer it was to build a series of digital “twins”—in essence, real-time software simulations of the operation. This allowed Clarke and his team to experiment with improved configurations before implementing them in the real warehouse, avoiding costly trial and error. Before long, Steiner says, the twins helped wring new efficiencies from equipment—making five plus five equal 12.
一支机器人部队正在拯救零售商
尽管如此，Ocado跟其他同行一样，满足需求也不太顺利。为了应对铺天盖地的订单，Ocado关闭了其移动应用程序，还在网站上增加了排队系统。但需求实在太多，3月中旬Ocado一星期里的送货时间全被预订，被迫临时关闭网站。近一周后重新上线时，原有用户下单都受到限制，然而限制后还是很难及时送货。而且，Ocado跟许多杂货店一样，临时限制每件商品只能买两到三件，以阻止囤货。
不过接下来的一年里，Ocado实现第一次实现营业利润。大约在同一时间，食品杂货咨询公司、投资银行，后来连宝洁、联合利华、雀巢和可口可乐等巨头也开始低调要求参观分拣中心。斯坦纳的本能反应是拒绝。“当时我们很保密。”他回忆说。但他很快意识到，虽然其他公司参观分拣中心可能会学到一些技巧，但Ocado十多年里搭建集成软件、硬件、仓库工人和送货流程的系统其实无法复制。2012年的年报中，Ocado首次提出将知识产权货币化制定为战略方针。
Ocado于互联网繁盛时期创立，当时三位20多岁的英国人蒂姆·施泰纳、乔纳森·法曼和杰森·吉辛在高盛当交易员，投资创业公司亏了钱。2000年4月，三人联合成立了Ocado。（Ocado是个虚构的词，之所以选这个词是因为不属于任何一种语言，而且创始人喜欢这几个字母当标志的样子。）Ocado的首席执行官施泰纳是创始人里唯一留在公司的人。他看起来结实修长，短短的灰色头发，淡蓝色的眼睛，快速介绍Ocado的历史时散发出一种拳击手的气质。
问题是：哈特菲尔德应用的技术还有很多需要改进之处。Ocado使用的设备是巨型传送带和分拣机，都是为制造业工厂设计，工厂通常大量制造相同的产品。但这种模式不适合种类繁多的杂货店，而且每位顾客的订单都不一样。“之前我开过物料搬运设备的玩笑，感觉是5加5的投入只能得到7的回报。”施泰纳说。
The slew of licensing deals pushed many investors to abandon their skepticism: It’s been a long time since Ocado was a heavily shorted stock. “I used to be a big bear, but I became a big bull after the Kroger deal,” says Bruno Monteyne, an analyst who covers European retailers for the equity research firm Bernstein Research. Still, those deals aren’t adding much to the bottom line—because Ocado receives money only after the automated CFCs are built.