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.
应用机器人后，Ocado最新的分拣中心每工时可拣选200件商品，意味着收到正常订单后，商品从供应卡车运到蜂巢，拣选、包装并装车等待配送，全过程不到15分钟。同时，由于蜂箱的模块化设计，可以很容易地复制和调整大小以适应新位置。
本文另一版本登载于《财富》杂志2020年5月刊，标题为《新冠疫情前线上的杂货机器人》。
For many years, Ocado’s talk of becoming a tech platform seemed to be just that: talk. Equity analysts were skeptical, and the stock became a perennial favorite among short-sellers. But Ocado’s logistics prowess has gradually won converts. Beginning in 2017, the company announced a series of licensing deals with grocery chains on four continents—including a huge partnership with Kroger. Since then, Ocado’s market capitalization has quadrupled to north of $10 billion, while revenue has been growing at about 10% annually, reaching $2.2 billion in 2019. That kind of growth is nothing for a tech company—but it’s exceptional for a grocery.
Complementing the hardware is new software—lots of it, from cloud-based mobile apps to artificial intelligence. This integrated package, along with the engineering support to maintain and upgrade it, is what Ocado now offers to the world’s grocers.