foreign [Music] have you ever wondered just what happens after you click buy on Amazon you're about to find out let Amazon tours take you inside of the filming Center join us and let us take you on a journey across our vast network of Innovative Technologies including some of the most adorable robots you'll ever see millions and millions of products accessible with a click of a button and our incredible employees who make what seems impossible possible so sit back relax and enjoy your Amazon fulfillment center tour we hope it makes you smile foreign and welcome to this Amazon fulfillment center tour a virtual experience we are happy to check you behind the scenes and show you around and actually explain to you of what is happening after you click the buy now button on Amazon my name is Patricia I'm standing here in fra 7 which is our Amazon robotics fulfillment center in fact in Germany for seven you may wonder where this is coming from all of our Amazon buildings are always named after a nearby airport the closest one which is in my case the Frankfurt International Airport there you got it the frag coat and the Seven is actually referring to the number of buildings that we have in this specific region so my building is the seventh one under the Frat coat the next time you do receive an Amazon parcel make sure to check out the ship label and take a look at the bottom left corner when you see for seven you know the Journey of this parcel actually started in front seven in fact I'll over here in Germany so always have that in mind like I said we're happy to take you behind the scenes and take a closer look of what is happening and the focus is actually on all of our outbound processes so please keep in mind that all of the inventory that we have has already been received unpacked and put inside of our shelves also we call that still so those specific steps has already been happened and our focus is on outbounds it's not just myself today you also meet a couple of colleagues of mine from all around the globe and we take you behind the scenes first of all we want to kick off this tour and introduce you to some cray technology you might see this already in my background so there's a lot of movement going on and I'm now handing you to my dear colleague Kate she's in Northern America and she will take you onto the robotics floor at least virtually Kate over to you thank you so much Patricia I am broadcasting here from my site ewr4 in the small town of Robbinsville in the beautiful Garden State of New Jersey here in the U.S I am excited to showcase our adorable robots to you so behind me on the floor are our orange rectangular drive units those are our Amazon robotics we have hundreds of robotic drive units that help make our jobs easier here in the Fulfillment center these robots lift up our storage towers that we call pods that house all of the inventory here in our buildings now we have items ranging from video games to granola bars basically if you purchased an item off of Amazon and it was smaller than a microwave oven it is housed inside these storage pods now it might look like our robots are traveling around randomly on the floor I assure you they are not so let's learn more beneath each robot is an onboard scanner and on the floor are bar coded stickers that we use to help direct the robots in the right direction they will scan those barcodes and they will receive coded information on whether they should go straight they should turn they should lift up a storage pod or even travel to a workstation it's almost like robotic streets and avenues it's pretty clever now I get questions often about what happens if one of the items in our fulfillment center were to fall off one of those robotic shelves well the good news is is that we have a team of employees that are trained to work with our robotic floor they wear a special Tech vest that has artificial intelligence enhanced communication and sensors they also carry around a tablet device that help them maintain a steady stream of communication between themselves and the robotic floor so what they're able to do is slow down stop or reroute completely robots in an isolated area so they can access the floor once they're out there they can pick up an item that has fallen they can replace one of the barcoded stickers or maybe clean up a spill that's out there on the floor the cool thing about this job is that no prior training or education is necessary to work with our robotics Amazon trains in-house in fact if you want to further your education Amazon has recently announced a 1.2 billion dollar that's billion with a B initiative to fully fund college education for our Frontline workers including Associates and bachelor's degrees that's incredible okay so now that you've learned about our robotics technology and how we use it in our fulfillment center it's time to jump into the process so I'm going to send you on the fastest plane ride ever to Germany and reunite you with my friend Patricia thank you so much Kate and welcome back everyone and now we're starting right into it like Kate said we're actually taking a look at the first process step here which is called pick and I'm happy to introduce you to another dear colleague of mine this is Louisa hi Louisa and she is actually able to show us the pick process in closer detail today so as an example let's say you've ordered a smaller item let's say a deck of cards this is a smaller item that we do have in our inventory and this order will be directed to our building over here a robotics building like we are in front seven and Luisa is getting all of the information needed on her display so she has an item description she has a picture of that item and if you take a closer look at the front of the pot you will see that there is a bright light beam so we do have some visual help here we have this light beam Illuminating the correct bin to help Louisa find the item that is on the display she will then grab the item scan it and put it into the correct tote which toad is the correct one you may Wonder check out the gray bar on top so there are buttons and the button above the correct tote will actually light up in green color so a lot of visual help this is all in place in our workstation speaking about the workstation itself it's set up in an ergonomically friendly way which is super important to us we want to make sure that all of our employees are working in a safe environment so the workstation is set up in this way and we have this ergonomic power Zone as well so this is all based on the feedback that we're constantly getting from our employees so like I said the item is popping up on the display Louisa is picking the items getting the barcode and placing it into the correct tote at some point the tote is full so what is happening next she's actually pushing this tote onto the conveyance so next up there is a little ramp and the ramp will then direct the charge onto the tote elevator the tote elevator will lift up the tote and directing it on the main conveyance the conveyance that we have inside our buildings is then directing the chode to the next process step which you may have guessed it already is the pack department so from here picking the item next up is the pack Department we're excited to take you on another let's say internal journey and we're actually having a roller coaster ride prepare for you so enjoy the ride next up is pack department and you're going to meet another dear colleague of mine which is Federica Live From Italy so enjoy the ride and have fun [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well I must say ciao my name is Federica and I'm streaming from Italy from trn1 which is our sortable robotic site close to the beautiful city of Turin in the northwest of the country I'm here today with my dear colleague Stefania child stefi thank you so much for your support and I'm standing in front of one of our pack single stations so Stefania is back in our customers order before going to give a closer look to what Stefania is actually doing I would like you to notice that she is wearing clothes which are part of our PPE or personal protective equipment in Amazon we love acronyms we have more than 500 acronyms so here inside our fulfillment center we actually have vending machines full of PPE we have box openers earplugs a high visibility vest whatever anyone might need to work in a safe environment because for us for Amazon safety first we will just need our badge we will scan it and go everything is for free so let's now give a closer look to what Stefani is doing and the process itself starts by Stefania receiving the thoughts of the conveyor she will then starting the process by scanning each barcode of each single item the system then the computer will suggest the funnel which is the best book size that needs to be used for these specific items but how does the system know which is the best box size that we need to that we need to use this is because the first time a new item comes into our inventory we will record its size and its weight we will then store all these information inside our big database and this information will be super useful for example here in this process to suggestifania the best box size I think this is pretty useful related to the box size is also the amount of tape we need to use to seal each box we have a special machine called water tape machines which suspends a pretty special tape this is a paper tip when that is water activated so as soon as the tape pass through the machine a little bit of water is applied will which will make the tape a little bit sticky but there wasn't the water doesn't dry immediately so as soon as Stefania place it on the box if the water doesn't dry immediately and we have the chance to move it in case we made any mistake sliding it them if we have any extra space left Inside the Box we will use a special material called Dana she's a paper recycled material once the box is also seared up on the top we will add a special shall barcode a special label which is called the sp00 label we match then all the information related to the item and also to the customers that will receive that item that box for example so it works a little bit like the license of the cars so once the box is ready you have probably seen already Stefania doing that Stefania will place the box back onto the conveyor this box our customer order is now ready to travel to the next stop of our journey today to the next destination which is The Slammer machine don't worry slam is just an acronym but I'm sure Kade is already ready to show us the super cool Glen machine and thank you Stefania ciao thank you Friday welcome to slam but do not fret slam is an acronym not in action slam stands for scam label apply and manifest and what we're doing here at slam is we are taking all of the information embedded in that school label that Stefania applied at Pac and turning it into your shipping label so how does it work so here to my left your right is a laser scanner that is scanning for that spoo label we will scan that spool label but at the same time we are weighing your package to ensure that what you ordered is actually inside that box so this piece of white conveyor belt acts as a scale so we will scan we will weigh we will bounce that information up to our Cloud servers and then in just a couple seconds and a short distance of conveyor we will print and apply the shipping label directly on your package almost like magic except it's not really magic right so our printer arms are designed to apply the shipping label with just a blast of air this allows the packages to continuously move through the slam process so we can remain efficient this is also the first step in the process where any of your customer information is forward facing to our employees we keep your information private until the last possible second when we need to apply that shipping label onto your package but what happens if something goes wrong if the Box weighs too much or weighs too little or if you cancel your order we will not print a shipping label here we will print a kickout label divert that package down to one of our problem solving employees and have them dive deep into a solution for that package so for example if it was a cancellation we are able to get that item back into inventory for the next customer to order okay so once the packages are properly labeled and ready to go it's time to get them to you guessed it your doorstep so we need to get them on the trucks so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to shrink you down into the size of one of our Parcels I'm going to put you through an amazing piece of technology called our ship Sorter and when you come out on the other side you'll be reunited with my friend Federica enjoy the ride [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you welcome back to my site welcome back to trn1 and I'm actually standing in front of my I would say kind of very nice and beautiful and big shipping Department here all around me so it starts from over there it goes here in front of me but it goes on till this yellow line we have our shipping sorter it's actually a special conveyor that is receiving all of the packages from the Slime machine the cake just showed us and this belt will automatically split the push those packages down to the courage shoot down to the corrid docks where track are waiting to be loaded depending then of course on their final destination or on the carrier so this belt is automatically pushing those packages because our employees will literally build the walls of boxes inside of the of the tracks like a sort of the game of that race starting from the bottom of the track till the very top ceiling to ensure that there is minimal shifting during the trans sport once these trucks are full they will be ready to go to travel to their next destination well either with our Amazon Logistics services or or some of our local care that sometimes we ask ask support to So speaking about Amazon Logistics you might have seen recently some new looking Amazon vans in your neighborhood that's because we have recently introduced some of them with some pretty cool amazing technology inside and they're actually also ergonomically designed for our drivers and by 2030 more than one other thousand electric vehicles will be delivering packaging worldwide I think this is pretty cool and why Amazon logistic it's a huge part actually of our Network we sometimes also partner with some local carrier as I just mentioned few seconds ago we have in N A we have UPS FedEx and smaller Regional companies some of them have actually reached some pretty amazing lengths to keep delivering our customers order we have just prepared for you one of the more a video with one of the most amazingly delivery we've ever done worldwide [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] how incredible was that well we hope you enjoyed that video and we truly hope you enjoyed your tour with us today thank you so much for taking time to take this virtual tour with all of us we hope it was incredible and we hope to see you again soon bye friends ciao bye