An Hour at Amazon

As we are in the midst of the holiday season – and shopping has been on the minds of many – I wanted to share my experience behind the scenes on a tour of the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Edison, New Jersey.

I wasn’t much of a fan of the idea of going. What would I see? A warehouse with boxes? I was very ready to be bored. Instead, I was fascinated. Working in a library, I have an appreciation of inventory control and knowing exactly where a specific item may be found, as well as delivering the right book to the right branch and right patron. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about how each section in the warehouse worked together for maximum efficiency.

Stowers empty items from bins and boxes delivered to the facility into larger, tall sets of bins, sorted by size. Devices scan everything so the computer knows exactly which spot on which bin an item is placed.

Pickers are the people who find the items you order. The correct larger set of bins is brought right to the picker by a robot (a “Kiva”) that looks a lot like a big Roomba vacuum cleaner. The Kiva goes under the set of bins and lifts it a little off the floor, allowing it to be moved around. The robot area is enclosed by a chain-link fence – the bins are large and heavy and the robot may not realize a human is in its way. The robot knows where to go by reading barcodes on the floor. Watching the robots and bins made me think of the plants in The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. But less deadly. Maybe.

From the picker, items make their way to packers, who are trained to reduce waste by using correctly sized boxes for your item(s). From the packers, the boxes are labeled, scanned again, and go on a conveyor belt to the employees who load the trucks. In Edison, the trucks go across the street to a distribution center, when the items inside are again sorted into the trucks you see in your neighborhood.

At every stage, your item is tracked and scanned and checked to make sure you’re getting exactly what you ordered. It was pretty amazing to see what happens and how Amazon is able to deliver so much so fast. Visit Amazon’s tour site for information on booking your own tour.

Once you take a tour like this, you can’t help but be interested in learning more about the company and what they do. Mercer County Library System has many resources to add to your Amazon knowledge, good and bad:

Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets by Jason Del Ray

How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economies, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future by Danny Caine

Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire by Brad Stone

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone

Invent & Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos by Jeffrey Bezos

Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr

If you use Amazon Web Services or want to know how, the library offers LearningExpress Library and LinkedIn Learning.

And, if you’re interested in Amazon as a investment, find trusted information using Value Line Investment Research, Morningstar Investment Research Center, and Weiss Financial Ratings, all available through the library.

- Andrea at Hopewell