“A lot of the innovations that you see in the center - the way that we process stuff - actually comes from the associates,” she said.The much anticipated one-million square foot Amazon fulfillment centre in Ajax is set to open in later this fall and the process to recruit more than 1,000 full-time Tier 1 Warehouse Associate positions is kicking off. “One of Amazon’s innovations is they have these algorithms that direct you to the right place,” said Pizzetti, who commutes from Gloucester to work at the warehouse.
When an order is placed, it is routed to “pickers” such as Brooke Pizzetti, who walk among the shelves with yellow totes to fetch ordered items that are then sent to packaging. They also give us the skillset and tools to achieve that.” “Amazon has an extraordinarily high standard for accuracy. “It is a very precise process,” Frith said. “The critical part is we have to make sure the process guarantees an exact match, virtually and physically, for what we are stowing,” said Frith, a Hopewell resident who joined Amazon five years ago after retiring from a 35-year career in public administration and in substance-abuse prevention. It’s the work of “stowers” like Glenn Frith to make sure the millions of items in the facility are stored in a way that they can be most efficiently retrieved when an order is placed. While Amazon relies on computer algorithms to manage its orders, logistics and shipping, much of the work at the fulfillment centers is still being done the old-fashioned way, by people. Miller has been working at the Chesterfield site for 13 months and became general manager in January. “We really kicked up more of that volume about two weeks ago,” said Miller, a Marine Corps veteran who joined Amazon eight years ago as an entry-level manager. While the fulfillment center can ship orders anywhere, Amazon’s recent announcement that it was expanding its one-day shipping option for its Prime member customers means the local plant is seeing some of its volume shift more toward shipping orders within a 300-mile radius. The stow area is a vast array of tall shelves where items are stored before shipping.Īmazon has made some investments in technology upgrades at the Chesterfield facility, most recently in a new robotic arm that palletizes totes, and in an expanded package sorting system that helps speed delivery times. “I think it is a phenomenal experience to get out and see one of these fulfillment centers, to see what the scale is, and meet the people who are behind all that hard work that goes into making the magic happen in getting that box to your doorstep,” Miller said.Ī recent walk through the facility on a media tour revealed items in the “stow” area ranging from bottled soap to Bisquick. The Chesterfield site is offering two tours a day, Monday to Friday. Under an expanded program being offered at 23 Amazon facilities in the United States and Canada, the number of tours is increasing tenfold. The company is now offering more public tours of its massive fulfillment center in Chesterfield, one of 175 fulfillment centers the Seattle-based company operates to store, package and ship the vast quantities of products that customers order from the company every day.įor the past five years, Amazon has held four tours a month at the Chesterfield fulfillment center, and about 11,400 people have visited the site.
Last November, Amazon announced plans to open HQ2, or second headquarters office, in Northern Virginia, an investment expected to create about 25,000 jobs over 20 years.Īs its presence grows in Virginia and the Richmond region, the online retail giant is opening its doors to let more people see what happens behind the scenes in its order fulfillment operations. The company said it now employs more than 8,500 people in Virginia, including at its facilities in the Richmond region and in Virginia Beach and Springfield. In 2017, Amazon leased a 328,000-square-foot building on Lakeridge Parkway in the Enterchange at Northlake business park in Hanover County to serve as a package sorting facility employing about 300 people. Since then, the company has added other operations in the Richmond region and around Virginia. The Chesterfield facility has 2,200 employees, a number that can swell by as much as 1,000 seasonal workers during the peak of the holiday shopping season.Īmazon opened the center in the Meadowville Technology Park and another one in Dinwiddie County in late 2012, investing more than $135 million.
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