
They might have underestimated the mix of items. From bagged dog food with 20kg, boxes of all shapes down to small poly‘s is hard to handle. For picking robots as well as the sorting AGV‘s.
Amazon didn’t robotize its entire item spectrum yet, as far as I know. It focus on robotizable items.
If such a heavy dog food bag brakes, all the small pieces lie on the floor that those dumb AGV‘s drive upon. That’s immediately causing clogged wheels and even more. And to clean the mess up, one has to stop the entire AGV area as it’s not safe for humans to enter. One broken dog food bag can cause some expensive maintenance and drives operational costs up. 1 broken bag per month can likely kill your business case.
Simple thoughts for a complex problem never lead to a solution.
You might think one or two steps further. The 5-W framework might guide your thinking.