
A Rare Peek Inside Amazon’s Massive Wish-Fulfilling Machine - ghosh
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/inside-amazon-warehouse/
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morsch
It only mentions the working conditions in those fullmilment centers as a
brief aside: apparently the building is air-conditioned and water is readily
available -- no mention if there's _time_ available for a drink during your
shift. I guess you can write an article about just the technical marvels of
these buildings, but don't forget that it's only half of the picture.

The motto "work hard. have fun. make history." printed in 2m letters struck me
as Orwellian.

~~~
ColinDabritz
This was the best article I've seen so far for describing and understanding
the conditions inside:

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-
mcclelland-f...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-
free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor)

~~~
gambiting
One could argue that Amazon just simply couldn't function if it wasn't as
organized as it is. If the employees could take as much time as they like to
walk to get the items they would need more people just to make up for the
uncertainty, if employees could bring their own possessions in and out,
inevitably things would get lost, and if they got lost, the system would not
be accurate anymore,orders could not be shipped out and would have to be
delayed/cancelled = reduced customer satisfaction. I have read this article
you linked and I really find it hard to sympathize with the person who wrote
it. She was paid a wage to do a job and to do it well - I cannot blame Amazon
for making sure she was doing what she was paid to do.

~~~
morsch
If a company can't function without relying on behaviour that is unethical,
then it can't exist; it's as simple as that. What exactly constitutes
unethical behaviour crosses the line is up for debate (and usually codified as
law), the consequences aren't really.

There's also a difference between making sure your employees are doing their
job through monitoring on the one hand and on the other hand having an
inhumane expectation of what constitutes their job in the first place. I think
both can be done to a degree that's unacceptable (and German law e.g. poses
some boundaries on both employee monitoring as well as maximum daily/weekly
work hours etc.).

~~~
prostoalex
It doesn't seem like it's a permanent situation - increase in temporary labor
usually happens during high-traffic pre-holiday season (also known as the
magical spirit of Christmas) and the reason Amazon had to bring in so many
temporary workers is that at the time of the article the Kiva Robotics
technology was not up to snuff.

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williamstein
Ugh: "Unlike software, fulfillment centers aren’t built overnight."

~~~
gamegoblin
Maybe the author is referring to a really complicated build script that takes
a few hours to run! But probably not.

Though really, "overnight" is just a figure of speech. Many startups probably
are formed, ship a product, and die in the amount of time it takes to build a
large fulfillment center.

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aditya
Interestingly, AMZN bought Kiva and will deploy 10,000 robots soon. Very cool
video here: [http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/22/technology/amazon-
robots/](http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/22/technology/amazon-robots/)

~~~
pests
Do you have another source for that video? It keeps playing the ad twice and
then loading an unrelated video.

~~~
phoboslab
Found this on youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsMdN7HMuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsMdN7HMuA)

~~~
pests
I was hoping the one aditya linked was newer as the article was written this
year. Did they reuse that old video or is there indeed new footage?

~~~
aditya
Not the same video, this has more real world footage...

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mabbo
Just going to throw this out there, but the software division of amazon
fulfillment is always hiring. I'm a developer here and I really enjoy it.
Interesting problems, and you get to visit places like PHX6 fairly often.
Based in Seattle, Toronto and I believe Bangalore.

My username at Amazon. Happy to answer questions.

~~~
harmegido
Working conditions in FC's have been criticized in the past. Is there any
consideration in the optimization process of minimizing human usage/energy, or
is it just all "get as much stuff into a space as possible and then out the
door as quickly as possible, however it needs to be done?"

~~~
zeriff
I've spent time at Amazon, I suspect: \- Amazon persistently strives for
efficiency and frugality over all else: applies in FC and HQs. I think this
culture could turn off many people \- Kiva will reduce human usage/energy (not
sure if that's where you were headed though) \- Inevitably, optimization means
reducing the cost (inc human effort) required to store and fulfill products \-
Having visited FCs, the ones I saw had fine working conditions though I
understand the reality of publicity in the past

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tsomctl
Looks like it took a huge amount of engineering to build. The extensible
conveyor belt going into the truck took some effort to design and build. The
software wouldn't have been terribly difficult to implement, but is still
impressive how it keeps track of where everything is. I'm wondering if their
software keeps track of the dimensions of objects, so that it tells the
workers what shipping box to use and how to arrange the objects in it.

~~~
mcpherrinm
The inventory database definitely knows dimensions: that's key data to making
the whole operation work. It isn't just the box at the end, but also how much
shelf space, what kind of shelf, whether it can be moved by a single person...

A 60" TV and a TV remote need vastly different things to happen in the FC.

There is a lot more to the software than meets the eye too: trip planning,
various UIs for pickers and packers to read. Predictive modeling for where to
store products to minimize pick time.

~~~
Shivetya
It doesn't cease to amaze me how fast people dismiss the actual complexity of
tasks they don't understand. As you pointed out, there is a lot going on that
most people overlook when it comes to managing inventory.

I am in distribution, we have many interconnected systems to manage our
inventory, whether it is in stores or distribution centers. Within each there
are many places and item can and cannot go, whether because of size, weight,
volatility, or toxicity.

Who processes are dedicated to having large volume items readily available to
minimize trip times for stocking and fulfillment.

I am curious if Amazon relies on separate system for each location or
centrally managed. There are benefits to both

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jayvanguard
Wow, I didn't realize that one map on COD: Black Ops was designed after an
Amazon warehouse.

