Inside an Amazon Fulfilment Centre

As far as warehouses go, Amazon have some of the biggest in the world and with 149 operating fulfilment centres and plans for a further 20 across Europe and North America, Amazon is a company everyone has heard of.

The global company has recently expanded to Mexico, opening a warehouses all over the country to cater for the people of Latin America and has plans to expand to a host of countries over the next few years.

The company offers no signs of slowing down and an increasing number of people are opting to use Amazon’s Fulfilment Service to sell their own products, meaning the company is constantly expanding – in fact it is predicted that by the end of 2015 the company will be turning over $100 billion annually.

But what is the lays inside an Amazon Fulfilment Centre?

Being such a big company gives Amazon the advantage to let in who they choose into their warehouses, meaning the secrets of the AmazonFulfilment Warehouse have been hidden away – until recently when Amazon opened their doors for a tour.

Size

Amazon warehouses are some of the biggest in the world. The UK’s biggest is an impressive 800,000 square feet – or the size of 14 full sized football pitches – making them unimaginably big but minute when compared to Baltimore’s one million square foot warehouse.

Robots

As the warehouses grow, the technology used within the warehouses is constantly being updated and improved, to help both pickers and packers in the warehouses. One of the latest additions to the warehouses in the US is the Amazon robots – with over 15,000 robots operating within North America.

Robots enable the company to become more efficient and they have plans to launch a drone delivery service in the not too distance future – meaning deliveries will never be affected by human error, traffic or staff strikes. New visionary systems also enable entire truck loads to be unloaded and stored within 30 minutes, rather than the previous time of a few hours.

Staff

As of January this year, Amazon had almost 160,000 employees worldwide – however this doesn’t include warehouse contractors or seasonal workers (for example Christmas temps). It was once suggested that a picker or packer for Amazon would walk at least 10 miles per shift, just finding the individual products – however this varies from centre to centre.

Products

Since Amazon launched its Fulfilment by Amazon service, their warehouses contain everything from books to children’s toys andconfectionary to sports equipment, making them huge competitors for companies such as Walmart.

If you’re thinking of using Fulfilment by Amazon to sell your products you will need to use a shipping company to get your products to them, so they can pick, pack and distribute those items for you – once they have been dropped off at a Fulfilment Centre you will be able sit back, relax and let Amazon do all the work.

National Pallets

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