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Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

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Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#21

Post by johnpowell »

marincounty wrote: post #14

As I read through the notes, the one thing I really liked was the 4 day work week. Three days off just makes sense? I belonged to a union, and we had the opportunity to work 4 10hr. days, and the members voted it down. I still don't know why they voted it down.

I worked in a wafer fab for a summer and we did four 12 hour days and then three days off. And then three days of work and four off.

It was by far one of my favorite schedules. I rode my bike to work and that was about 45 minutes each way and when you add in the time it takes to get ready for work it was nice to only have to do that 50% of my days. And with four day breaks I was able to really get into projects or go camping for a long time.

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#23

Post by boxcardavin »

EGreg wrote: post #15
Animats wrote: post #6

That's a old manual Amazon facility. The newer ones use Kiva robots to bring the shelving units to the pickers, rather than the pickers going to the shelving units. The manual system isn't that different from the Sears "schedule system" introduced in 1908.[1] Note the line "pickers don't necessarily pick items for a single or even complete order." That's crucial. Orders are split apart and combined pick lists generat…

By the way, wouldn't segways bringing people to the shelves have to expend less energy and be more efficient than kiva robots bringing shelves to the people?

In addition to power being cheap (as others have mentioned), the humans would experience 'downtime' when moving between stops. Downtime for humans costs a lot of money.

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#24

Post by PuffinBlue »

Animats wrote: post #6

That's a old manual Amazon facility. The newer ones use Kiva robots to bring the shelving units to the pickers, rather than the pickers going to the shelving units. The manual system isn't that different from the Sears "schedule system" introduced in 1908.[1] Note the line "pickers don't necessarily pick items for a single or even complete order." That's crucial. Orders are split apart and combined pick lists generat…

Kiva robots, for the curious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KRjuuEVEZs

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#25

Post by NeutronBoy »

jib wrote: post #18
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #9

The thing I took away from this was mistake minimization. As shipping the wrong item likely results in a mess of expensive actions down the road, it is much much better to make sure that the right item is shipped the first time. To this end they are willing to shuffle their entire warehouse just to prevent similar items from being set next to each other.

Shuffled is also a feature. You almost never buy a 32" TV and a 34" TV at the same time, right? So it is highly unlikely that similar items would benefit from being next to each other. It helps for finding if that was a problem, but finding is solved by computers anyway, so the layout can be optimised for pathing instead.

If you watch the Kiva video linked above, they also optimize for popularity of items - so as items are picked out of each crate, the remaining items are analyzed. If there's no popular items remaining on the create, they go and park it at the back of the warehouse.

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#26

Post by minthd »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #9

The thing I took away from this was mistake minimization. As shipping the wrong item likely results in a mess of expensive actions down the road, it is much much better to make sure that the right item is shipped the first time. To this end they are willing to shuffle their entire warehouse just to prevent similar items from being set next to each other.

I don't think it's really random.Since it's dictated by the computer, even though it looks random, i'm sure there are some patterns in the order(for example there are items that statistically sell together) ,But maybe they keep it as a trade secret , only to be known by a small group of developers and managers.

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#27

Post by Lunarsm »

Despite popular belief, most Amazon facilities do NOT use kiva robots. The fulfillment center would have to be completely rebuilt on the inside to accommodate them. Heck, even some new facilities still don't use them. I work over at Amazon in one of their largest fulfillment centers in the USA. To answer your question regarding where a tote is sent in the facility is simple. During each shift, there are any number of queues open (usually about 5). When receiving an item from DA, we will scan an item into a tote and the computer determines, based on the size of the items, where in the facility it needs to go (library, or library deep). Aside from a few exceptions, most items are randomly stowed. The stowers all have a rate, and because of that, will find whatever space fits their needs. Pallet mass (items with a lot of the same quantity to fill a pallet) is checked regularly and pulled from the regular shelves and sent to a sorting area (at least that's what they started doing at my FC) where it can be stowed somewhere in "pallet land." Try not to think too much into where items are stowed, it is pretty much a clusterf*ck across the FC.

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#28

Post by nmridul »

Animats wrote: post #6

That's a old manual Amazon facility. The newer ones use Kiva robots to bring the shelving units to the pickers, rather than the pickers going to the shelving units. The manual system isn't that different from the Sears "schedule system" introduced in 1908.[1] Note the line "pickers don't necessarily pick items for a single or even complete order." That's crucial. Orders are split apart and combined pick lists generat…

I was wondering if the robots have to really carry the whole shelf ?

The shelves could be modified to be like automatic wending machines. The robots could just go to the shelf and the shelf will dispose the correct item to that robot. Then the robot goes to the next shelf for that order and collect all the items required for the order from different shelves and return to the packer.

The packer need to only arrange the items in the final box.

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#29

Post by Zombieball »

nmridul wrote: post #28
Animats wrote: post #6

That's a old manual Amazon facility. The newer ones use Kiva robots to bring the shelving units to the pickers, rather than the pickers going to the shelving units. The manual system isn't that different from the Sears "schedule system" introduced in 1908.[1] Note the line "pickers don't necessarily pick items for a single or even complete order." That's crucial. Orders are split apart and combined pick lists generat…

I was wondering if the robots have to really carry the whole shelf ? The shelves could be modified to be like automatic wending machines. The robots could just go to the shelf and the shelf will dispose the correct item to that robot. Then the robot goes to the next shelf for that order and collect all the items required for the order from different shelves and return to the packer. The packer need to only arrange th…

My guess is though this is entirely possible it is far too expensive to modify all the shelves to have this behaviour when you have a 1.2M sqft. facility.

Re: Notes on a tour of an Amazon distribution facility (2014)

#30

Post by Zombieball »

minthd wrote: post #26
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #9

The thing I took away from this was mistake minimization. As shipping the wrong item likely results in a mess of expensive actions down the road, it is much much better to make sure that the right item is shipped the first time. To this end they are willing to shuffle their entire warehouse just to prevent similar items from being set next to each other.

I don't think it's really random.Since it's dictated by the computer, even though it looks random, i'm sure there are some patterns in the order(for example there are items that statistically sell together) ,But maybe they keep it as a trade secret , only to be known by a small group of developers and managers.

To quote Lunarsm below:

> Aside from a few exceptions, most items are randomly stowed. The stowers all have a rate, and because of that, will find whatever space fits their needs.

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