Inside Amazon
Amazon hosted a tour of the recently opened delivery center in OKC.
While reading the newspaper on her phone earlier this year, Erica Stone learned that Amazon sought to hire local entrepreneurs to run logistics businesses.
She was interested, and Amazon delivered.
Stone and her family now own Straightaway Delivery, a company built to work alongside Amazon as the retail giant expands its presence in the Oklahoma City metro area, opening a delivery center in northeast Oklahoma City and breaking ground on a massive fulfillment center near the Will Rogers Airport, set to be completed in 2019.
The growth is designed to push faster and more efficient delivery. Same-day delivery will be available within a 40-mile radius from the delivery center as early as January, and some products are already being shipped on a next-day basis. To achieve this, Amazon is using new partnerships with Straightaway Delivery and another partnership with Crimson Transport as anchor legs in the delivery sprint.
“One of the really cool things about it is ‘the last mile,’” Stone said. “When you order something on Amazon, you don’t interface with someone like you do at a box store. Our company, and all the folks who work for us, we are the face of Amazon.
“I think that’s one of the things that makes it really cool,” Stone said. “You’re working with a small business that’s tying back into the international conglomerate.”
Amazon hosted a tour of the recently opened delivery center at 4401 E Hefner Road on Tuesday, attended by Stone, U.S. Sen. James Lankford, U.S. Rep Steve Russell and others. The facility is a 60,000-squarefoot warehouse designed to receive packages, sort for delivery and then load onto vans for the “last mile” delivery.
The delivery center employs 460. Unlike some of the other centers used for storage of inventory, the sorting of these packages en route for delivery is performed by humans rather than robots.
Those 460 jobs don’t include those employed by Stone and others like her. Straightaway Delivery is one of two companies used at the Oklahoma City delivery center to operate and manage delivery drivers. Straightaway started with eight employees when it launched Oct. 3, has already increased to 15 and Stone anticipates hiring another three dozen in the next four to six weeks.
Straightaway has a starting salary of $15 an hour and provides access to health care and paid time off. Both health care and wages well above Oklahoma’s minimum wage were important to Stone.
Employees drive the newly unveiled Amazon delivery vans, built by Mercedes-Benz specifically for Amazon. If you haven’t seen one already, you will soon enough.
“You’ll see them across North America,” said Kevin Connelly, logistics director of Amazon's North America operations.
When asked about the possibility of drone delivery from the center, Connelly said the company would continue to evaluate all possible ways to improve the delivery process.
“Our goal is to be better,” Connelly said. “I don’t see this company ever stopping innovating.”
The completion of the Oklahoma City’s Amazon Fulfillment Center at 9201 S Portland will help increase the availability of same-day delivery on items. The 640,000-square-foot facility sits on more than 69 acres. The company plans to employ about 1,750 people at the fulfillment center when completed, and Amazon anticipates a capital investment of about $146 million.
Amazon announced earlier this year it plans to add a second Oklahoma fulfillment center in Tulsa. Similar in size, the company expects to employ about 1,500. A report by The Tulsa World revealed the facility will be built on an 82-acre property near 43rd Street North and 129th East Avenue and includes an estimated $130 million capital investment.
Stone is unsure if Straightaway will expand its operation to partner with Amazon in any function beyond the current delivery center, but she’s excited with the opportunities in store already.
“I’ve always been really intrigued with what Amazon does,” Stone said. “It seems like they see a need and figure out how to address it. They always seem to be on the leading edge of what’s new and coming.”