{"id":17484,"date":"2016-11-18T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/amazon-their-most-innovative-drones-werent-built-to-fly\/"},"modified":"2016-11-18T07:15:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T12:15:00","slug":"amazon-their-most-innovative-drones-werent-built-to-fly","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/amazon-their-most-innovative-drones-werent-built-to-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon: Their Most Innovative Drones Weren\u2019t Built to Fly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon, the digital marketplace that aspires to sell everything to everyone, has made major investments in digital transformation \u2013 not all of which have made the headlines.<\/p>\n

With the goal of becoming \u201cearth’s most customer centric company,\u201d Amazon has relentlessly reinvested in its processes to deliver more value, delivery speed and convenience to consumers. The famously taciturn company has kept much of it development inside a \u201ccone of secrecy,\u201d but the public evidence came in December 2013 when CEO Jeff Bezos appeared on the television news program 60 Minutes<\/a> to unveil the company\u2019s proposed drone-based delivery service.[1]<\/a> \u00a0While that program has become the face of Amazon\u2019s digital transformation, it remains years away from practical implementation. Meanwhile, technologies that dramatically improve Amazon\u2019s operating model are in full force in Amazon fulfillment centers: namely, robots.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZxrzIXkPycs<\/a><\/p>\n

The Walking Dead: Human Centric Amazon Fulfillment Centers<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Fulfilling orders on Amazon is very physically intensive, opening opportunities for automation. Beginning with just two fulfillment centers in Seattle and Delaware, Amazon now fulfills orders for its products out of an estimated 198 in the United States and 343 worldwide.[2]<\/a> In the classic fulfillment process flow, orders from a centralized database are routed to workers known as pickers. These pickers push shopping card-like trollies around the warehouses, walking over 11 miles per shift, picking up and scanning an item every 30 seconds from aisles and aisles of goods stored in an intentionally random assortment across an almost one-million-square-foot facility.[3]<\/a> The path for each picker is optimized so that the next item on his or her list is in the vicinity of the previous item. Once the picker\u2019s bin is full, he or she delivers the items to the next station for packing.<\/p>\n

\"pickerpacker\"This system is filled with inefficiencies, from the time of having to locate packages one by one, to having to resort packages for shipping once they are picked. The expense of the worker\u2019s wages (compounded by the sheer fatigue of the work) plus training costs, the time inefficiencies of manual search, and the declining benefits of the marginal worker all add up. Amazon\u2019s solution was digital innovation.<\/p>\n

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Digital Transformation through Robotic Transformation<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"kiva\"<\/a>In March 2012, Amazon acquired the Boston-based robotics company Kiva Systems for $775 million dollars.[4]<\/a> Kiva manufactures squat, orange, ottoman-sized automated guided vehicles, capable of lifting custom shelfs and transporting them across the warehouse. This \u201cmagic shelf\u201d technology served as the back end of order fulfillment for many companies including Staples, Walgreens, Gap, Office Depot, and Crate & Barrel.[5]<\/a> After the Amazon acquisition, all these contracts were canceled, and Kiva was rebranded \u201cAmazon Robotics\u201d leaving the e-tailer with an exclusive competitive edge.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n