Johnson Controls Inc. had a logistics mystery on its hands: thousands of reusable shipping boxes and storage racks were disappearing every year. The auto-parts maker, which was spending a small fortune to replace the equipment, found that some were squirreled away at factories by Johnson Controls' own plant managers, others were kept by customers. One box was discovered at a Michigan gun range; another had wound up storing bait on a fishing boat in Seattle.
In the shadow of Greenwich's 02 Arena - the futuristic dome originally built as London’s showpiece for the Millennium - what looks like a picnic cooler on wheels zips among groups of gawking children. This little delivery robot, designed to autonomously navigate sidewalks, not roads, later this year will begin making deliveries from local businesses direct to customers. In doing so, it may just conquer e-commerce's final frontier: the Last Mile, the least efficient and most problematic step in the delivery process.