On Cyber Monday 2014, Amazon unveiled its eighth generation fulfillment center, which utilizes robotics, Kiva technology, vision systems and almost 20 years’ worth of software and mechanical innovations to fulfill holiday orders. The company is currently operating 10 of this new generation of fulfillment centers across the U.S.
“The Amazon fulfillment teams are dedicated to innovating in our fulfillment centers to increase speed of delivery while enabling greater local selection at lower costs for our customers. The advancements in our latest fulfillment centers hit all three of these customer desires while continuing to provide a work environment that is great for employees,” said Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations and customer service.
Some features of Amazon’s eighth generation fulfillment center include:
- Kiva robots of which Amazon currently has more than 15,000 operating across the U.S.;
- Robo-Stow, one of Earth’s largest robotic arms moving large quantities of inventory for customer order fulfillment;
- New vision systems enabling the unloading and receipt of an entire trailer of inventory in as little as 30 minutes instead of hours; and
- New, high-end graphically oriented computer systems for employees to use while fulfilling orders for customers.
Amazon recently announced it will hire 80,000 seasonal employees to fulfill customer orders this holiday, a 14% increase over last year. The company expects that thousands of those employees will stay on in regular, full-time roles.