Over the last decade, automated equipment has replaced the manually operated equipment used in warehouses to store and pick merchandise. Every warehouse facility often aims at increasing its productivity in the storage and sorting of items. With the rapid growth of the current cutting-edge technology, this goal can be easily achieved. Although innovative warehousing requires huge investments, most global companies like Amazon are striving to create an elaborate and effective warehouse system to enhance their supply chain management, thus increasing their sales.
Company Background
Amazon Inc. is one of the largest e-commerce and cloud computing firms in the United States. The giant firm was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and first operated as an online bookstore, before transitioning to offer digital editions through the kindle e-reader (Amazon, n.d.). However, over the years, the multibillion-dollar company has grown to become a retailer that stocks almost all types of products. The inventory and shipping empire provides its customers with a wide range of product categories including clothing, electronics, office supplies, groceries, home furnishings, e-books, and other types of media. Due to the nature of the enterprise, the company invests in supply chain management to enhance the flow of products from the manufacturer to the consumer in the most effective way possible. As one of the most important aspects of SCM, Amazon has various strategies to develop an innovative warehouse.
Warehouse Innovations and Employee Work Environment
While trying to create an elaborate SCM system, Amazon has redefined its warehouse efficiency through various innovations to enhance its customers’ convenience. One of the most outstanding features of Amazon’s warehouse management is its random storage system (Rodrigue, 2020). Although the system may look confusing, the giant retail company uses it to group products together intending to enhance on-demand efficiency. Before placing any product on the shelf, Amazon warehouse workers scan its barcode, thus making it possible for the computerized system to track where each object is located. Randomness is also preferred as it saves on space by aiding in the handling of the diverse products purchased online. Although the giant firm did not invent this strategy, it has implemented the random storage philosophy at a scale that has not been seen before.
Amazon’s warehouse management is also categorized into various groups. First, the sortable fulfillment center involves over 1500 full-time associates who pick, pack and ship consumer orders like housewares and toys (Amazon, n.d.). However, these associates are assisted by Amazon robotics to enhance efficiency in meeting customers’ demands. Similarly, Amazon has non-sortable fulfillment centers with over 1000 full-time associates who deal with bulky consumer items like furniture and outdoor equipment (Amazon, n.d.). Furthermore, the global enterprise has other warehouse categories like sortation, receive, specialty, and delivery centers. Within all these fulfillment centers, Amazon uses computer-controlled robots which navigate around the warehouse using markers on the ground.
Exemplary Elements
One of the most exemplary elements of Amazon’s innovative warehouse is the automated shelf-moving warehouse robots. In 2012, Amazon used $775 million to buy Kiva Systems, a startup robotics business, giving the global enterprise control over a new generation of mobile robots that can transport shelves of goods from one employee to another (Li, 2016). These computerized robots scan barcodes on the ground to trace their direction. This innovation provided Amazon with a technical framework to develop new iterations of warehouse robotics, paving way for a future where the only employees required could be the ones hired to maintain and repair the robotic systems. As of 2021, Amazon iterated on its machine learning project, freeing the robotics team from the strenuous task of managing multiple GPUs. This technology-based innovation saved the company half of the ML interference costs, thus improving both productivity, and overall savings (Amazon, n.d.). The over 200,000 mobile robots working in the Amazon warehouse networks, aiding the human workers also helps the global company fulfill its speedy delivery promise to the prime consumers.
Improvements
While it is true that Amazon’s innovative warehousing makes the fulfillment centers workers’ jobs easier, several faults require the company to make some improvements. For instance, with the automation of most tasks in the warehouse, there are very high expectations from workers. With the new high targets, most workers get a limited time in between the tasks. Such cases may not only compromise the safety of the fulfillment center workers but also increase the probability of items being damaged due to failure to adhere to some rules. Therefore, Amazon should reconsider some of these outrageous expectations, considering that human beings can suffer from exhaustion. In addition, according to recent investigations, robotic warehouses like Amazon fulfillment centers record a high rate of workers’ injuries (Hill, 2019). Therefore, the global retail company should consider its employees’ safety by eliminating cognitive, hidden, and moral injuries. Working on these recommended adjustments can not only enhance Amazon’s productivity but also help maintain a good reputation.
References
Amazon. (n.d.). Our facilities. Web.
Amazon. (n.d.). Amazon robotics case study. Amazon Web Services, Inc. Web.
Hill, D. W. (2019). The injuries of platform logistics. Media, Culture & Society, 42(4), 521-536.
Li, J. (2016). Design optimization of Amazon robotics. Automation, Control and Intelligent Systems, 4(2), 48.
Rodrigue, J. (2020). The distribution network of Amazon and the footprint of freight digitalization. Journal of Transport Geography, 88, 102825.