We take an exclusive look behind the scenes inside the Amazon Fulfilment Centre in Warrington, Cheshire. We find out what it takes to make sure everything's delivered on time, with a little help from some robots
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00:40 This is Radek Stegbauer, the general manager
00:42 of the vast Amazon Fulfillment Center
00:45 in Warrington in Cheshire.
00:46 And as if he's not busy enough at this time of year,
00:51 he's invited us to have an exclusive look
00:53 behind the scenes of Christmas in Amazon.
00:56 The building is approximately 400,000 square feet,
01:00 or five football pitches, and contains
01:02 over 2,000 robotic drive units and around 20,000 shelving
01:07 units processing millions of orders every week.
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01:13 So Amazon Warrington, here for six years already.
01:36 We have a very experienced team from that perspective.
01:39 We are a team now in peak of about 2,000 people.
01:43 And what we do is, other than having a lot of fun doing this
01:47 and enjoying it, we fulfill millions of items,
01:51 actually, from this fulfillment center every week.
01:55 This is our stand-up area over here.
01:58 Basically, every department now making
02:00 receipts has their own stand-up area.
02:03 At the beginning of every shift, the team
02:05 gets together and then have a little medical brief,
02:07 or starting with, like, how to save the tapes,
02:10 roll out the tapes, and so on.
02:11 Like, how do we operate?
02:13 And then, just kind of like, what's important for the day,
02:16 what is the goals, and a bit of a team chat, any questions.
02:20 And then we go and we start running the show.
02:23 So we always try to bring as much energy
02:25 to our stand-up briefs.
02:27 But every manager is a unique manager as well.
02:30 So they put their own sort of spin on it, right?
02:33 As you can see, we have the Christmas tree over here,
02:36 which most of the departments come,
02:37 like, they bring up in their stand-up--
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02:43 - I'll keep it simple, right?
02:44 - Please.
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02:47 - The thing is, so the first step of this process
02:50 is when the volume arrives here, and whether that's for something
02:55 that we sell as Amazon, or whether it's
02:59 items that our third-party small and medium businesses
03:03 sell through us, it just arrives at our dock.
03:05 We start unloading it, and we start receiving it into DFC.
03:09 Then we were looking back there at the process
03:12 of how we store the items.
03:13 So we basically make sure that all the items are received
03:18 into DFC, stored in the locations
03:20 as we were looking at it, and waiting for our customers
03:24 to order them.
03:25 And then once they do, that order gets processed,
03:28 and then we have the other follow-up from there,
03:31 which is we need to pick the item,
03:34 transport it to the next station, which would be our pack.
03:39 And then we have this unique and exciting technology, the SLAM.
03:46 We call it SLAM, where we apply the label,
03:51 and then the item travels to the final customer from there.
03:56 Now we're going to see what we call an AR field, which
04:06 is an AR stands for Amazon Robotics.
04:09 So we're going to see the robots.
04:11 We're going to see how the inventory is stored.
04:12 We're going to see how it's getting stored,
04:14 how it's getting picked.
04:15 And so I'm going to explain as we get there.
04:18 But pretty much over here, several million items
04:23 stored in what you're going to see,
04:25 kind of like the yellow towers.
04:26 We call them pots.
04:28 And let's go take a look.
04:30 So this is when they're coming down here now on P2.
04:38 And basically, we start downstacking them
04:40 into these carts, making sure, again, we're
04:43 scanning every tote to every cart.
04:45 We always know where the inventory is.
04:47 And then the items sort of continue
04:51 to our robotics stations, we call them,
04:54 and to our colleagues who perform the next task, which
04:58 is stow.
04:59 So stow is what we can see here.
05:01 And basically, the idea is that we just store the items very
05:08 much randomly.
05:09 That's what we learn is working the best for us.
05:13 And we store them inside these bins.
05:15 It's just about, does the item fit in or doesn't it fit in?
05:18 As soon as the item is scanned, you
05:21 can see the lights come up as well.
05:24 Over here, or so far, we've only seen the white light come up,
05:33 which saying everything's fine, everything's good.
05:35 But there might be instances where a magenta light will come
05:38 up as late and illuminate specific bins.
05:41 And it means this item cannot go into the specific bin
05:44 because maybe there's already something very similar to this
05:47 one inside, which might be then a little bit confusing
05:50 for the next person who might be picking the item if there's
05:53 something too similar that might not help, and so on.
05:56 So just trying to make it as easy as possible for everyone
05:59 as we always do.
06:01 Yeah.
06:01 And you can see the pods being driven to the stations
06:05 by the drives.
06:06 We're going to take a closer look later on.
06:09 But there is a bit of a queue already.
06:11 So when everything is stowed into this spot,
06:14 the next day, this one is going to go away.
06:15 The next one's going to move in.
06:17 And that's the thing.
06:18 So that's something that's called FC Games.
06:24 And it's just to make the workday a little bit more fun,
06:30 or even a bit more fun.
06:32 Our colleagues can decide to play a game
06:35 or not buy their work.
06:36 So basically, every operation they finalize
06:40 helps them progress in the game.
06:42 And they can compete across floors.
06:45 They can just play on their own.
06:46 They can compete against their other colleagues if they want.
06:51 So a bit of a competition, a bit of a fun, and so on.
06:54 This is now a pick, right?
07:06 So these stations can be used for both of the processes.
07:09 So working with the monitor over there,
07:12 and then again using the visual hints from the system,
07:17 you know exactly into which bin you need to go to pick.
07:21 And then you see pictures of what it is
07:23 that you need to be picking out.
07:26 And it's such a smooth, very natural process,
07:30 where we just through usage of the technology,
07:35 we just remove the need for people
07:37 to normally in logistics operations,
07:40 you would be walking through long aisles.
07:43 And it would be so much walking involved,
07:45 which just generally speaking, people don't like.
07:50 So this is how we can solve it, right?
07:52 So the volume, the inventory will actually come to you.
07:56 As we have the white light over here,
08:04 we have a magenta light in stow, which
08:07 kind of highlights the bins into which the items shouldn't
08:10 be stowed.
08:11 But that's only for reasons like there's
08:13 something already very similar to this item in this bin,
08:17 and it might be confusing for the people picking it.
08:20 So stuff like that.
08:21 But other than that, it's just about where does it fit.
08:25 And then we have our bin etiquette sort
08:28 of standard work, which we train our team to follow as well.
08:33 So how to do it, and what orientation.
08:36 All the aid you get here is really
08:38 what you have on the screen as a picture of the item,
08:42 and a description of the item.
08:44 And then the aid that you get through the light showing you
08:47 this is where the item is.
08:49 It's all about making it as simple, as frustration-free
08:53 for just everyone operating it.
08:55 That's just sort of the why behind the what.
08:57 Yeah, so this is the AR cage.
09:06 This is where we've been seeking.
09:33 We've seen robots as well here, which are fascinating.
09:36 How much of an asset is that to the company?
09:38 How more efficient does that make you?
09:40 Yeah.
09:41 Look, I would probably approach it
09:43 from a slightly different angle, which
09:44 would be how much of an asset is that to our employees.
09:48 Because some of the things that we were discussing on the shop
09:52 floor, as we call it in production,
09:55 was that in your regular traditional logistics
09:58 operations, a lot of walking would
10:00 be involved between the aisles and traveling
10:03 between distances from one pick or one stall to the next one.
10:08 And traditionally, it is not very popular amongst employees.
10:13 So I think the true value of this
10:15 is also about making the process easier for our people,
10:20 whereas we're not asking them to walk anymore.
10:22 The robots do the walking.
10:25 And yes, there is efficiency improvements or gains
10:29 from that as well.
10:31 But most importantly, our people really
10:34 like working with this technology,
10:35 because you've seen it's actually quite enjoyable, very
10:39 seamless, very frustration-free.
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11:48 Yeah, yeah, it's really impressive.
11:53 [LAUGHTER]
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12:16 Christmas is, first of all, a lot of fun, right?
12:30 So we do a lot of work and a lot of hard work as well.
12:36 But it's a lot of fun.
12:37 I'm sure if, as you came into the fulfillment
12:41 center and the entrance, you noticed
12:43 the festive decorations in there,
12:46 and maybe some music was playing there as well.
12:49 And we want to make sure that everyone can feel uplifted
12:52 about doing this as well.
12:53 I think people generally care about Christmas.
12:55 People care about other people feeling good as well.
12:59 And in large part, that's what we do over here.
13:02 We're very busy as well.
13:05 But we prepare for that, right?
13:07 So we plan.
13:08 We prepare.
13:09 We hire more new colleagues.
13:12 So I think as we were walking the floor, some of the things
13:15 we were discussing on reflection was,
13:17 it doesn't look as busy as you were expecting.
13:20 And it's because everyone knows so well what to do,
13:22 how to do it.
13:23 So that's how we run our Christmas.
13:27 Amazon, yeah, it's busy.
13:31 It's a busy part.
13:33 We get a Christmas dinner.
13:35 I'll reserve comment on the actual Christmas dinner.
13:39 But we do get one.
13:40 So I've had better.
13:42 I've had worse, let's say.
13:45 Obviously, it's the critical part,
13:48 getting all the presents out to people.
13:50 So yeah, it's a lot busier than normal.
13:53 But we don't mind that.
13:54 Sometimes I prefer it when it's busier.
13:58 The time seems to pass a lot quicker as well.
14:01 So yeah, it definitely is.
14:03 Like I said earlier, it's the five weeks from Black Friday,
14:09 run through to Christmas.
14:10 So that was a peak period.
14:11 So we're almost done now.
14:14 I work from 7.30 in the morning to 6 PM.
14:19 So basically, it's a 10-hour shift with two half-an-hour
14:24 breaks in between.
14:25 You sort of hear various things about the company.
14:34 But unless you're here and you're
14:36 in the day-to-day interaction, then
14:38 you know it's a true reflection of what this company is.
14:42 And as an employee, I can't be quite happy
14:47 as an employee of Amazon.
14:50 I try to do different things every day.
14:55 So it saves a lot on the actual boredom.
15:00 So if I stay one day, I do receive another day.
15:03 I do cart run, reactive a different day.
15:05 So I try to split if I can.
15:08 And it helps me with--
15:10 so you're not using the same muscles as well.
15:13 So yeah, so if you're doing different--
15:17 if you try to do a different process every day where
15:19 possible, then you're using different parts
15:21 and different parts of your body.
15:23 So it's better if you can do that.
15:27 Basically, I treat it as going to the gym,
15:29 but again, paying for it.
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15:33 Can you talk to me about how you look after your staff?
15:41 Yeah, no, sure.
15:42 It's a great topic.
15:43 And to be honest, very close to my heart, this one,
15:45 because my personal saying or motto
15:48 is it's all about the people.
15:50 I mean, I have a lot of passion for the process
15:53 as well and continuous improvement and so on.
15:55 But the number one thing is the people,
15:58 because people are who operates the process.
16:00 And we want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable
16:03 doing it, knowledgeable doing it,
16:05 growing while doing it, and so on.
16:07 We care about making sure that we have direct dialogue
16:11 with our employees at all levels.
16:15 And that happens through various mechanisms or processes
16:18 we have in place, whether that's our Gemba walks,
16:22 or we go on the floor as leadership team.
16:24 We go visit the processes, the departments.
16:26 We talk about what's going well, what's not going well,
16:30 what can be improved, and so on.
16:32 We celebrate some of the successes or recent improvements
16:35 we've done in the process.
16:37 Or we have something that we call My Voice, where associates
16:40 can just raise any concerns or questions,
16:43 or sometimes positive feedback as well.
16:47 Anything that they have on their minds, they can just raise.
16:50 And we review all this feedback every day
16:52 and respond within a few hours.
16:55 And then if we need to go talk with people
16:57 to just learn more about what their experience is,
17:00 we go and do it.
17:02 You've seen the HR representation on the floor.
17:05 So we make sure that HR is always there,
17:08 close to our people, as well as our managers.
17:11 That's always the first thing, is the relationship
17:13 between the manager and the associate, or their teams,
17:17 so to speak.
17:19 That is what really, really matters.
17:21 We want to make people feel like they're part of a team,
17:27 and they want to be recognized as individuals as well.
17:29 So those are some of the things that we care about,
17:30 some of the things that we do.
17:32 But there's so much that we could talk about
17:35 from this perspective.
17:37 The system knows exactly the order of the packages.
17:46 But the shipping label, and therefore the customer,
17:49 only gets assigned to the package over here,
17:51 so that we don't do that in pack, and so on.
17:55 We have some systems over here that help do various checks
18:00 as well, in terms of, is the item in the right box?
18:04 Is the box or the packaging, the shipment,
18:07 the right weight as well?
18:09 Just to make sure that before anything goes out,
18:12 we have these automated checks in place
18:14 to make sure that everything we anticipated
18:17 to happen by this time actually happened,
18:19 and there shouldn't be any problem with the shipment
18:23 by the time it's reaching the customer,
18:24 because maybe there's something else,
18:26 something different inside.
18:27 And that's all happening on these few meters over here.
18:30 Do we get a break for Christmas here?
18:35 Do we stop and have a breathe?
18:39 Yeah, yeah, we will have a bit of a break.
18:42 We will break out and make sure everyone has time
18:45 to enjoy their Christmas with their families.
18:48 So we're going to be closed for, I think, about three shifts,
18:53 and just making sure everyone gets their well-deserved time
18:57 off as well.
18:58 And very much looking forward to--
19:01 we'll have a bit of a party with the employees,
19:04 a bit of a high-five moment when we go celebrate Christmas
19:09 as well, because by that time, we
19:10 know we've delivered what we needed
19:12 to deliver for our customers.
19:14 And really, the people that are around us as well.
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20:24 January is our time to reflect on how peak when.
20:48 We are doing that on a daily basis throughout peak as well,
20:52 but really evaluating, understanding
20:54 our lessons learned, and just making sure
20:57 that next year, next peak, we can go and deliver even better
21:01 again.
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