Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Robots Drive Cutting-Edge Warehouse

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s robots are now driving the company’s most cutting-edge warehouses and fulfillment centers, Cory Johnson showed in a Bloomberg Street Smart report.

The showcase of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s newest tools to more efficiently stock, sort and send out products was made as the company geared up for the recent Thanksgiving weekend.

“I’m surrounded by robots. This is one of the 10 fulfillment centers that have these robots,” Johnson said, before showing people how the company’s stowing and picking systems work.

For the first step, Johnson showed that once a truck delivers products to an Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) warehouse, a “stower” inputs into a database what type of products these are and then proceeds to stow away the products inside compartments in a cart being carried by robots.

These moving robots move around the warehouse, automatically organizing themselves, until a product they are carrying is to be pulled out in order to fulfill an order of a customer shopping online. According to Johnson, these carts weigh about 700 pounds and the robot that carries them are about 300 pounds.

The robots then carry their carts to a picker who then gets the product that has been ordered. The picker then sends the product off through a conveyor belt where it will travel to the department that would package and ship the product to a customer.

According to Johnson, these robots have enabled Amazon to fulfill more orders and stuff more products into their warehouses. Nonetheless, the heavy investment is also the bane of the company as it continues to feel the pressure from observers and stakeholders to become more profitable.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s robots and its effort to streamline its fulfillment systems was bolstered by its $775-million purchase of Kiva Systems in 2012.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) shareholders includes Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management which reported ownership of about 2.48 million shares of the company by the end of the third quarter of the year.