Speed is the name of the game when it comes to online delivery, and American retailer Amazon has it down to a pat. The e-commerce juggernaut pioneered the two-day shipping model for its Prime subscribers, after all, and while it has seen some changes over the years, the swift turnaround continues to be its greatest asset, especially in larger countries with stretches of land to traverse.
Having built an identity around it, Amazon makes the process look easy. But there’s more to same-day deliveries than simply keeping an online inventory readily stocked – the smaller cogs of the machine have to fall into place and function like clockwork, from sorting out countless small items to packing them into shipping containers. To streamline and optimise workflows, the industry giant has embraced the use of robotics in its facilities around the world.
“Our aim is to eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive,” asserts Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics, on the role of robots during Amazon’s Delivering the Future event held in Tokyo, Japan, and it’s been quite the journey. Starting with a single type of robot in 2012, the company’s fleet now includes various other models, and the recent rollout of its new DeepFleet artificial intelligence (AI) technology holds the promise of more to come.
Seeing the science in action proves different from hearing about it, though. As part of the event, which also coincides with Amazon’s 25th anniversary in Japan, a tour of its Chiba Minato fulfilment centre (QCB4) – a large warehouse to store items and where customer orders are processed, packed, and shipped – was conducted for invited media, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the logistical process before a package arrives at the doorstep.
Spanning 200,000 square metres, roughly the size of 140 football fields, the facility is currently the biggest robotised hub in the country, and most recently, welcomed Amazon’s one millionth robot. The start-to-finish encompasses three main phases: Inbound, which involves receiving, stowing, and picking; outbound, focusing on sorting and packing; and the Middle and Last Mile, covering delivery.
It’s a busy hive of activity that begins from the Inbound deck. Here, products arrive directly from manufacturers and sellers to be stored in the fulfilment centre, after which an initial quality check ensures that they are correct, in the right quantity, and free of damage. Scanning is carried out to register them for storage, now unloaded and resting in containers that will be transported to the stow stations.
This is where the automation kicks into high gear. Joining human staffers on the premises are roaming robots, attached to large yellow storage towers referred to as “pods”, that are guided by 2D barcodes on the ground. Nicknamed Proteus, these round Roomba vacuum-lookalikes can move autonomously, allowing them to detach or attach themselves to a pod as needed. There’s a lot of gliding, stopping, and pivoting, but never a collision, overseen by a sophisticated tracking system that keeps a log of where each item is at any given moment. What this translates to is a jumbled placement of orders on each shelf, arranged not by product type, but when they are next needed by a picker.
Pickers, like stowers, stand at individual stations with a barcode scanner in hand, ready to scan goods sent their way. To eliminate the hassle and time needed to locate the right order, the fulfilment centre uses a projected light beam to highlight its position in the pod, and the same works in reverse: a purple/pink illumination prohibits stowers from taking an item out of the container and placing it at a specific slot due to various reasons, such as safety issues or insufficient space. A specially designed mini-game at each cubicle serves to lighten the load of repetition, incentivising the hard work and productivity of on-site staff.
The well-oiled logistical machine works like a charm, cutting an impressive sight in person. It’s not until a fuller view of the pods in action that the implication of robots or AI potentially taking over the labour force hits, however – looking down from a mezzanine evokes the experience of a mesmerising 3D game of Tetris, albeit with unsettling dystopian-flavoured undertones, especially with the army-like numbers and methodical behaviour.
Brady, a proponent for collaborative robotics, allays concerns of manpower replacement at Amazon fulfilment centres around the world, reiterating the company’s goal of working alongside robots, not against them. “Our goal as a team is to make those machines as useful and practical as possible, to give our employees the tools that they need in order to make good on our customer promise.”
“The idea that it’s people versus machines is the wrong mindset… Any job that requires common sense, reasoning, problem solving, thinking at a higher level, and understanding material flow, people, and the value of our customers – those jobs will always be needed,” he reaffirms during a separate Q&A session with the media, citing its next-generation facility at Shreveport, Louisiana as an example that created over 2,500 jobs in the area.
Moving over to the packing station reveals more human faces. Here, single items are removed one by one from the containers and thrown into the automated packaging machine, which automatically scans and wraps them in recyclable paper bags. A high-speed machine serves as the multipack solution, transporting up to two crates of items at once to their designated levels, much like an elevator. Both technologies were developed in Japan, and upon reaching the manned magic pack station, the orders will be boxed up with a shipping label and sent to the staging area for delivery.
The one-hour-or-so preview is what visitors can expect when the Chiba Minato fulfilment centre opens its doors to the public sometime this year as part of the expanded Amazon Tours programme. Like existing ones in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Italy, and more, participation is free and available to all individuals aged six and above.
Elsewhere in Nagoya, a new 125,000-square-metre fulfilment centre is due to open later in August. It features several sustainable technologies, from vertical solar panels to geothermal heat exchangers, and like other fulfilment centres, will deploy robotics to optimise workflows.
Alongside its Chiba counterpart and 25 other facilities across the country, this soon-to-open space offers the logistical edge needed to satisfy customer needs.
As Hiroaki Watanabe, director of Japan Customer Fulfilment Solutions, explains in a separate interview with Geek Culture, the selection for each fulfilment centre changes depending on market demand or the level of automation. All of them start small, and when more products are introduced, a new node is built to accommodate them, especially for large items like bicycles and refrigerators. Naturally, the primary goal is to fulfil domestic demand first, before exporting the remaining inventory overseas.
The region, too, will benefit from such expansion efforts. For Singapore, the addition of a Japanese selection via Amazon.sg offers more buying options, with Amazon Prime members entitled to free international shipping. While there aren’t exact sales figures for the Japan store, the most popular categories for the international section include apparel and toys, both of which were spotted in abundance at the Chiba Minato fulfilment centre.
On a global scale, the facilities are free to cross-pollinate technologies as they like, resulting in a win-win situation for all. According to Watanabe, the cart cages with wheels and foldable containers, which lowered transportation costs, were some of the Japanese inventions adopted by other outlets, and there are plans to export the automated packaging machine to Australia and Italy in the future. Suffice it to say, robots will continue to be part of Amazon’s strategy.
As Brady puts it, “I do believe that it’s just the starting point for us to really become comfortable with robotics and how automation and technology can allow you to do your jobs better.”
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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