My family and I went to 1180
Innovation Way, Fall River, MA 02720 to visit the Amazon fulfillment center.
The visit was very fun! And at the end of the tour, we got metal water bottles
from Amazon as a gift. But, let me tell you the entire exciting adventure from
the beginning.
We came to know about this tour
through Facebook sponsored ads and enrolled for the tour for free of cost.
However, there were some rules that needed to be followed.
Attire
Please bring ID
Children under 6 are NOT permitted
Accessibility
Tour cancellations
Arrive early
Personal Belongings
Photography is not permitted
No food or drink
Please stay with your tour leader
We got there around 9:15 but the actual tour
started at 10:00 A.M., so we went inside to wait. We took a seat in the front
row and we were handed a neon yellow safety vest to make sure that the people
operating the big machines would see us from a distance. We also had these
headphones connected to a volume box so that we could hear our tour guide,
George, over the loud machines. On the walls, there was some cool information about
the steps to delivering a package to your doorstep:
Ordering
Inbound
Receiver and Picker
Package
S.L.A.M
Outbound
Delivery
At 10:00, George stated the tours
and explained to us through the rules and the process we need to follow. We
later started the tours and he said that we would only be walking on the green
path because the trucks would go on the yellow paths. He said that the building
was 1.4 million sq. ft. This would be about the length of twenty-four football
stadiums. We continue to cross and so many machines after a while we went up to
the 2nd floor and why we are climbing the stairs she said that we had to do the
Three-Point Rule.
The Three-Point Rule is that there
must be three points touching the stairs always. Two feet and one arm. We could
see one of the machine's liftings to grab a box that was all the top. Every
stop being left we also saw the machine sway a little to the left and right. He
explained that the jobs are chosen randomly so someone got a picker, which is a
person who operates the computerized guided vehicle, and they were afraid of
heights they would just be assigned to a different job.
They would also place the items at
random because they say it would be easier and take less time to find what they
were looking for. For example, if they were looking for a fishing pole they
would enter on their little device like a GPS machine and it would show them
the shortest possible distance to find it, but if they couldn't find the
fishing pole there, it would just be reported as missing and would move on to
the next possible route. The Inventory Quality Checkers would then come in to
see if it was really missing and if it was they would try to locate it. George
also said that they’ve never lost a single item although they have misplaced
thousands.
The most important task in between
inbound and outbound is S.L.A.M which stands for:
Scanning
Labeling
Analyzing
Manifest
This makes sure that all the
packages have the right addresses on them so that they could be sorted. First,
the boxes are sent down a ramp and are scanned for a barcode. Then, it is
labeled with the right addresses. Next, it is analyzed into groups, and
finally, manifest.
After that stage, all the boxes
would get sorted. This was my favorite part because a worm-like line would push
the boxes automatically. It was mesmerizing!
Finally, we all got amazon tour
water bottles and the kids got photo cubes with pictures of some of the workers
and the machines. I really like the amazon FCTour (Fulfillment Center Tour)
because it was very educational and entertaining!
