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.
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.
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.).
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.
I'll expand on my comment. I had often thought when the new warehouse innovations are announced, like the potential use for Google glass, that humans are becoming more and more like an extension to the platform the software runs on. Almost like we are a peripheral for the software. Go there, pick that up, take it over there, put it on that shelf, grab this item, get this sized box, wrap in plastic, too much!, tape box... Very dehumanizing :|
Almost like we are a peripheral for the software. Go there, pick that up, take it over there
Marshall Brain (founder of http://www.howstuffworks.com/) described this around 10 years ago in his book, Manna (free to read online[1]) looking at how automation could change things in the not-too-distant future:
Manna told employees what to do simply by talking to them. Employees each put on a headset when they punched in. Manna had a voice synthesizer, and with its synthesized voice Manna told everyone exactly what to do through their headsets. Constantly. Manna micro-managed minimum wage employees to create perfect performance.
The software would speak to the employees individually and tell each one exactly what to do. For example, "Bob, we need to load more patties. Please walk toward the freezer."
Years ago, I actually saw a story describing a warehouse run like this and sent it to Marshall Brain, having read this from Manna a while earlier. Sadly, I can't find that story just now, but, looking for it now, I just found out that "Voice-directed Warehousing" is a thing -- it has a Wikipedia page:
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.
I work at Kiva Systems as a software engineer, located north of Boston. We do a lot of work with robotics and Amazon scale web service development and we are hiring. Check it out at: http://www.kivasystems.com/careers-at-kiva/
Happy to talk about it further. Email me at pestrada AT kivasystems.com
I'd be surprised if these aren't already deployed. I visited a logistics trade fair in Stuttgart and was impressed with the concept. That said, it will work for things in the "library" aka small goods, but let's see how they scale these up to deal with pallet sized goods. I've got no doubt they will, though developing these machines will not be cheap.
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.
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?"
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
I have many replies, good answers, etc. But I don't speak for the company, and that's a touchy subject I wouldn't want to go near.
I can say this: if I felt that the company wasn't doing a good job of working to improve the lives of associates in the warehouses, I wouldn't work here.
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.
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.
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
Dimension data is an important part of the warehouse management system for any automated system. The size data will be used to figure out how the order should be shipped, but in my experience, it doesn't tell the packer how to place it in the box. Packers will often pick a larger or smaller box and then update the order information to note which size it shipped in before closing the order and sending it back into the system.
The motto "work hard. have fun. make history." printed in 2m letters struck me as Orwellian.