5 takeaways from inside the Amazon fulfillment center in Kenosha
As the holiday season begins to ramp up, the Amazon fulfillment facility in Kenosha is preparing for the millions of orders it will handle from now until the end of the year.
Most shoppers know Amazon as an online platform for them to get their goods, gifts and other necessities. They place an order and the package arrives at their doorstep.
But in-between the order and arrival, thousands of people and machines are involved in making sure the right items end up at the right place.
On Nov. 15, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other local media toured the facility and got a glimpse of what goes on behind the walls.
Millions of products are shipped from Amazon’s Kenosha facility every week
Obviously, Amazon ships a lot of products from different vendors, but the fulfillment center in Kenosha is a key facility in the company’s ability to get products to customers on time.
Varun Chaudhary, general manager of the Amazon fulfillment facility in Kenosha, said they begin preparing for the increase in shipping during the holiday in January.
“Essentially, we prepare all year to be able to ship the volume that we need to during peak time,” Chaudhary said. “During peak we’ll be shipping somewhere around 4 million units every week.”
Chaudhary added the facility will receive roughly 3.5 million to 4 million objects during a week. The facility itself has the ability to ship 1 million objects
in 24 hours.
Amazon is hiring at its Kenosha fulfillment center
Amazon has been hiring up to 100 people a week starting at about $18 per hour leading up to Black Friday.
The facility plans to have roughly 3,000 workers handling and organizing packages.
Newly hired workers get a $1,000 signing bonus and could get an additional $1,000 if they refer a friend for a job.
During the non-holiday portion of the calendar, workers can sign up for “extra time” where they make an additional $4 to $7 per hour for working extra hours. After Black Friday, employees who work overtime get time and a half of their pay rate.
“Everyone will work 10 to 15 more hours than usual,” Chaudhary said. “And we use that to be able to ship the volume that we need to.”
Amazon is hiring for multiple departments at their facility in Kenosha.
Packages move along the “SLAM Line” at the Kenosha facility.
Amazon officials did not comment on the thousands of employees that are being laid off across the company.
Amazon uses thousands of robots
There are roughly 5,000 robots in the Amazon fulfillment center.
“When you place an order, it actually drops to a building who’s going to ship that order,” Chaudhary said. “We sort the order, pack it and ship it out.”
The robots are involved in every aspect of the process from moving empty pallets, to giant shelves of product on wheels. Even for those picking and placing the items in boxes, there’s a robot the shines a light on the precise bin on the shelf for the worker to grab the item.
One of the big reasons why the company uses so many robots is Amazon officials say the robots save workers from injury.
A robot named “Steve,” which is a giant hand and arm, picks up heavy bins with products from a conveyer belt and places them on a pallet.
Amazon has a lot of conveyer belts
If there’s one thing that connects just about every part of the process, it’s conveyer belts. In the fulfillment center, there are roughly 28 miles of conveyer belts. Those conveyer belts are spread around the building which is 1.2 million square feet.
Each section is critical in the overall process of bringing each order to the customer. Some products are shipped directly from the facility to its final destination, others are shipped to other Amazon facilities.
In total, the facility ships to 150 countries.
Safety is a top priority as employees and robots interact
With thousands of employees and
robots moving about the facility, there is a high potential for things to go wrong or areas that can be improved upon.
“There are a bunch of process that need to go right to send every package on time,” Chaudhary said. “You need to have the right trucks, you need to have the right people, you need to have the right process … so everything at expanded volume becomes all more challenging.” Chaudhary said the company is also focused on the safety of the employees who help get the packages where they need to go.
“It is going to be busy, everyone is going to be working more hours. And we want to make sure everyone is safe while working in the building,” Chaudhary said. “There’s also a constant evaluation of the processes. Are the processes safe for the work that needs to be done? And as we add or take out processes, we make sure that they are safe to execute for our teams.”