Derby Telegraph

Getting up to speed at Amazon’s huge county warehouse

- By JOSEPH ASH joseph.ash@reachplc.com

IF you have ever bought anything from Amazon in Derbyshire then there’s a fair chance that the item will have been picked and packed at a giant warehouse in the county.

The e-commerce giant employs hundreds at its Derbyshire warehouse. But when people click the “buy now” button on the Amazon website, most probably don’t think about the warehouse workers and the chain of events which are necessary to get that order to you as quickly as possible.

If you live within the catchment area of the Amazon fulfilment centre in Chesterfie­ld, the chances are most of your Amazon deliveries come from this site.

Well, anything which is specifical­ly bigger than a monopoly board – anything smaller is likely to come from the robotic warehouse in Sutton-in-Ashfield.

The Derby Telegraph sent a reporter to the fulfilment centre to see how the warehouse operates and meet the people working there.

WHAT IS WORKING IN THE AMAZON WAREHOUSE REALLY LIKE?

I am sure most people have preconcept­ions of what it is like to work at Amazon.

Having personally previously only worked in retail, I had never stepped foot in a warehouse and from reading about some workers’ experience­s I was pleasantly surprised by what I witnessed when Amazon invited us to meet some of its employees in Derbyshire.

One employee review online noted the “target driven conditions where you were running up and down aisles” to complete tasks in the allocated time.

But I saw none of this, the atmosphere at the Chesterfie­ld site was fairly relaxed and not at all what I was expecting.

I spoke to a range of staff members, from area leads to warehouse operatives, and they spoke positively about the experience.

One employee, Chelsea, said: “It sounds monotonous, if you think factory work it sounds like the same thing every single day, and there is a bit of that, but every single day you’ve got new challenges and something to do”.

Picker Josh described working at the fulfilment centre as like a “second family”.

When I brought up the bad employee experience­s with the managers I was told “their number one objective is to keep people safe” and that they are always listening to “the voice of associate boards” where employees can raise concerns.

I expected to hear such responses from the leads at the site and was more interested in hearing an employee’s opinion on the negative opinions surroundin­g working at Amazon.

Speaking to Lou, an employee who runs her own wedding business as well as working at Amazon, she said: “I had no choice when I came to work here, and there are that many preconceiv­ed ideas about Amazon, so the dread of not only never working in a warehouse and you hear that many bad things that you really do think ‘what am I going to be walking into?.’

“But it is nothing like you imagine, when people say to me now ‘why you are still there when you don’t need to be?’”

While the staff I spoke to were overwhelmi­ngly positive, working in a warehouse environmen­t is not for everyone.

Long shifts often spanning the entire day or night, depending on shift pattern, can be very unappealin­g, as well as the somewhat repetitive nature of the job.

Being on your feet for a lot of your shift may also put others off.

However, the starting rate of £11.10, I imagine, will make many overlook the negatives.

THE JOURNEY OF YOUR AMAZON ORDER

Your order starts at the unloading area where a plethora of goods are brought in from suppliers, including the independen­t businesses that make up 60% of Amazon’s physical product sales.

From then the items are catalogued into an item sorting system which at first glance can only be described as a library of anything and everything.

Multiple floors of pick shelves contain a jumble of products, from bird food to Lego sets; there seemed to be no order to the location of products.

Or so I thought. However, Amazon is not just a heavyweigh­t online retailer, it also has advanced artificial intelligen­ce (AI) technology.

The AI used at Amazon means the mix of products actually makes a lot of sense.

Site lead Richard Cowlishaw-Ellison explained the process: “Our stowers choose where to put the item because it’s such a complex task that there is nothing better than the human brain at playing Tetris. “When they put it in the shelf, they scan the location so the system knows exactly where it is and when your order comes in the system finds the quickest, shortest path for the picker to pick it. “Because this is spread across multiple areas based on what other items they’ve got to pick that will then determine where they go to pick that item from”. After your order has been picked it is taken to a pack station, where it packed by another team member.

Richard said: “The employee at the station will scan the item and it will tell them which box to put it in and then they will fill the box up and put it on the line”.

The package is then weighed and the system makes sure it is the right box, the right weight, so the company can be sure the right item is being sent.

If the AI agrees with the conditions of the package a shipping label is attached and the package is prepped for delivery.

The package is then placed on a conveyor belt full of other deliveries ready to be distribute­d. Richard added: “The system is super smart, it will pick the next available pick-up and carrier to get to you, based on the delivery time you requested.

“The associates put the package onto the line, and the technology here knows which upkeep the package needs to be diverted on, based on destinatio­n it has been given”. After being put on a large pallet by a worker, the package is ready to be loaded into a truck for delivery to your door.

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 ?? ?? Derby Telegraph reporter Joseph Ash, left, with site lead Richard Cowlishaw-Ellison at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Chesterfie­ld
Derby Telegraph reporter Joseph Ash, left, with site lead Richard Cowlishaw-Ellison at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Chesterfie­ld

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