Working side by side

Autonomous motorized robots known as drivers look like solid plastic pallets low to the ground. They wheel themselves over QR codes on the floor and are controlled by computer algorithms.

On its top, one of these robots can carry a shelving unit in the picking section or, in the sortation section, a single cardboard package that’s nearly ready for shipping.

Years ago, workers would walk miles each day to retrieve products themselves. But now, when attached to drivers, the shelving units move themselves across the fulfillment center’s cement floor and bring products to employees for packing.

There’s a single robotic arm attached to a platform used in the sortation section that works with the drivers to move packages along.

The large, robotic arm sweeps across a conveyor belt to pick up and sort packages that already have shipping labels on them. It uses suction cups to pick up the packages, uses a camera to scan the labels, and sets the packages on the drivers that wheel themselves to the right chute, where packages keep traveling to the next processing area.

There are still manual package sortation stations where workers pick up boxes from a conveyor belt and place them on those robotic drivers.

Those stations are usually reserved for high-demand periods like busy shopping seasons; the stations are only opened when the robotic arm section hits max capacity. On average, about 80% of packages are sorted by autonomous robots.

There are about two dozen of those robotic arms attached to the platforms in the sortation section working now. They can process 150% more packages than humans, in part because they don’t take breaks and run 24 hours a day.

The average package at the facility is 25 pounds or lighter. The robotic arms can lift up to 50 pounds if the suction cups have a good grasp.

“Instead of the associate being focused on the physical lifting, the role has now transferred to, ‘How do I keep the robots on the floor running?’” Jones said. “The automation allows for the associate to focus on quality inspection.”

The company is investing in new robotic arms on a different floor of the facility as its expansion plan.

The average nationwide hourly wage at a customer fulfillment center and operations job is $22 an hour. When benefits are included, the company estimates the value is $29 an hour.

Amazon declined to share how much the robots cost for initial purchase and maintenance. But through generative artificial intelligence the company is “optimizing our supply chain planning, forecasting and delivery routing as well as creating new capabilities in robotics and automation,” the company said.