Amazon revealed its eighth generation of fulfillment centers on Cyber Monday, highlighting the robotic employees that busily haul products to stations manned by human employees.
The teams of humans and androids working at the fulfillment centers are driving forward Amazon's efforts to speed up shipping, provide a wide selection of local products and lower cost to customers, says Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of worldwide operations and customer service.
"The advancements in our latest fulfillment centers hit all three of these customer desires while continuing to provide a work environment that is great for employees," says Clark.
The fulfillment centers, built at 10 locations around the U.S., rely heavily on many of Amazon's 15,000 Kiva robots, a family of robotic arms that rank among the most massive on the planet.
The squat Kiva robots, which look like beefy Roombas, slide beneath towers of merchandise, lift the pallets and then transport the products to stations. While robots are doing more so human workers can tackle other tasks, Clark says Amazon still believes in the value of its human workforce.
Rejinaldo Rosales, who works at one of the fulfillment centers, says expanded roles of robots at his job have made the site more efficient, though he and his coworkers don't socialize as much or benefit from the cardio associated with walking the aisles to retrieve orders.
"People play a crucial role in fulfillment for Amazon," says Clark. "Take gift wrapping. Can we do it by machine? Yes. Does it look the same? Could you still have the same personal touch? No."
While its ranks of robotic staff members is rising, Amazon revealed it plans to hire approximately 80,000 fleshy bipeds to work in its fulfillment centers during the 2014 holiday season. That figure is a 14 percent increase over last year's seasonal hiring and Amazon says it expects thousands of the temporary workers to stay on in permanent roles after new year resolutions are put to the test.
The growth of Amazon's fulfillment centers can be attributed in part to the successes of its own products, as the company moved three times as many of its Kindle Fire tablets this Black Friday as it did last year. The e-commerce company sold four times as many of its Kindle e-Readers this Black Friday as it did on the same day last year -- preorders also ravaged supplies of the Fire TV Stick.
