In a warehouse in the city of Noda, Chiba Prefecture, a robot with wheels zips around to pick up boxes of goods and carries them to a shipping container. It's Hitachi Ltd.'s vision for the future.

The Japanese maker of bullet trains and power stations on Tuesday unveiled a robot that can pick up products ranging from 500-milliliter plastic bottles to shoe boxes weighing around 1 kg.

Such robots would have the potential to replace some workers as companies begin turning to them for repetitive tasks such as collecting items from shelves in Amazon.com Inc. warehouses. These new machines would also extend the use of robots from fixed positions on factory floors, a common sight at automakers from Toyota Motor Corp. to General Motors Co.