Quartz (qz.com) has a fascinating post about Amazon’s use of chaos as a basic operating principle.
Here’s the introduction:
Amazon promises unlimited two-day shipping on everything from toothbrushes to dressers for the tens of millions of people who have signed up for its Prime service. That’s a lot of packages—about 5 billion last year alone. Given that volume, “every opportunity to improve a process by a second is relevant,” a regional warehouse manager told Quartz.
To achieve one of the most efficient e-commerce operations on planet Earth, Amazon has set up warehouses that look like a live-action game of Chutes and Ladders—whizzing with a meticulously coordinated system of conveyor belts, slides, and machines that do various tasks, like attaching labels to boxes and checking weight for quality control.
The one thing it hasn’t organized at all? Inventory. Items aren’t arranged by size, shipment date, or any other system. They’re shelved 100% randomly, wherever workers can find a place to stash them.
In other words, one of the most efficient tech companies in the world embraces the organizational tactics of a teenager’s bedroom. How could this possibly work? (Spoiler: It does.)
Instead of being able to find things because everything has been put in its place, Amazon puts anything somewhere it finds a place. Then it scans the location of that item, and the robots do the rest.
“Instead of sorting and filing, in other words, products are basically indexed,” Quarts explains.
If you’re at all interested in how their system works, this is a fun and informative read.
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Well if it works anything like Google photos, I’m sold.
Just like data on a hard drive. Write data on available sectors and log it to a record. Then use the record to retrieve the data.
Exactly!
Unfortunately, their promise of unlimited two-day shipping doesn’t apply to us.
But periodically you just get it anyway, despite their disclaimers.
Perhaps Oahu residents receive an occasional 2-day shipment, but this Mauian has yet to be so lucky! I nevertheless regularly shop Amazon.com and, increasingly, utilize the video streaming service included with Prime.
I’ve done business consulting for some local companies and advocated a semi-random distribution. It’s hard to get people to take the plunge. You have to trust the technology (well, you have to invest in the technology first). But it is completely logical. Speed issues aside, warehousing in a seemingly logical manner to humans just exacerbates errors. If you put the Colgate toothpaste in between the Crest toothpaste and the Aqua Fresh toothpaste, you get more picking errors than if you put the Colgate in between the Levis 501 jeans and the HP printers.
Sounds a bit like how Antique Alley is laid out. All kept together with our organic computers!
There are other examples of this “random distribution” logistics principle among online merchants. Am told, however, that Amazon’s “work cultural” can be similarly chaotic for the workforce itself.
Another interesting Hawaii/mainland difference for Prime members: on checkout there is and option to have a Prime item ship SLOWER and get a $1 credit (to be used for, say, book or video purchases). The ship-to address needs to be a mainland address, however. Since I’ve been back on Oahu that option has not been presented, except when I recently bought a birthday present for a mainland friend. I do miss that option since I’m seldom in a hurry and, often, the package comes in 2 days anyway.