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The goal of robotics technology in Amazon Operations is simple: Pair employees with the right technology to make your workdays safer, easier, and more productive, while delivering packages to customers faster than ever.
Meet the eight new robots supporting the next generation of package fulfillment:
1. Sequoia
- Job: Stores and retrieves inventory for employees picking items for customer orders
- Capacity: Retrieves hundreds of thousands of customer orders per week
- Launched in: Houston, Texas, in 2023
2. Hercules
- Job: Transport pods of items to employees picking items for customer orders
- Capacity: Can lift up to 1,250 pounds and travel across 1 million square feet
- Launched in: Sumner, Washington, in 2017
3. Titan
- Job: Transports large and bulky items to employees
- Capacity: Can lift up to 2,500 pounds
- Launched in: Schertz, Texas, in 2023
4. Sparrow
- Job: Identifies, selects, handles, and sorts individual products into totes to give to employees before packaging
- Capacity: Can lift items of up to 12 pounds
- Launched in: Richmond, Texas, in 2023
5. Pack Innovation
- Job: Create made-to-fit paper bags based on an order’s dimensions, which reduces the amount of material used
- Capacity: Helps package hundreds of thousands of customer orders per week
- Launched in: Euclid, Ohio, in 2023
6. Robin
- Job: Lifts and sorts packages before being brought to the outbound dock
- Capacity: Can lift packages up to 50 pounds
- Launched in: Lakeland, Florida, in 2022
7. Cardinal
- Job: Lifts packages to gently and tightly place them into carts in a Tetris-like manner
- Capacity: Can handle up to 50-pound packages, and load hundreds of packages per hour
- Launched in: Nashville, Tennessee, in 2022
8. Proteus
- Job: Moves carts with packages to the loading dock to be loaded on a truck
- Capacity: Can lift as much as 880 pounds
- Launched in: Nashville, Tennessee, in 2022
Visit About Amazon to learn m
ore.
No matter how you get to and from work, we want you to arrive safely. To have a safe commute, remember the following tips:
If you drive a car, bicycle, or e-scooter:
- Adapt your steering to suit the weather, road, and traffic conditions. Slow down in wet or icy conditions.
- Wear brightly colored clothing and use reflectors at night to increase your visibility to others on the road. Consider wearing your safety vest to and from work!
- Before you ride, check to ensure your tires, brakes, and lights are in working order.
If taking public transit:
- Hold on to a handle or rail and face the direction of travel, so you can anticipate braking and bends in the road.
- Store bags securely, to avoid theft and trip hazards.
If taking a bus or shared rides:
- Stay back from the curb.
- Before exiting a bus/vehicle, check for trip hazards, traffic and pedestrians.
- Don’t stand in drivers’ blind spots.
Peak safety challenge: Think you've got it all down? Click here to play the last of our 2024 Peak safety games and show your knowledge of what it takes to commute safely.
In case you missed any of the last three safety games, be sure to click here to play our weather safety game, here to play our 5S workplace safety game, and here to play our safety reporting game. Once you've played all four games and entered the four special codes correctly, you'll unlock a surprise!
At this year’s Delivering the Future event, we unveiled major advancements that will improve safety and efficiency for Operations employees and make the shopping experience even better for customers. Three of our Safety Ambassadors were on the ground at the event at MYQ1, near Nashville, Tennessee, to get a firsthand look.
Isaiah Sampson, an Outbound pick associate who has been with Amazon since 2021, said he’s most excited about the cutting-edge technology at our next-generation fulfillment centers like SHV1 in Shreveport, Louisiana. These locations feature many of Amazon’s latest robots, including Proteus, which will help employees safely ship packages more efficiently.
“I’m hearing a lot about the robotics and how they’re going to improve how we do our jobs,” said Isaiah. “I know Peak season is coming, and it makes me happy for what these could mean for 2025 and beyond.”
He’s especially looking forward to what robots will be able to do for safety. “I love being a Safety Ambassador so I can look out for my coworkers,” said Isaiah. “Robotics do their dance on the floor, so the associates have to do less repetitive motion, and I think that could be a big improvement for how products are moved.”
Lisa Albi, who has been with Amazon since 2023 as an Outbound Fulfillment Engine associate, was similarly impressed. “I appreciate that Amazon is always looking ahead to the future. I can’t wait to tell my coworkers about what I saw here.
What really caught her eye was the announcement that Amazon Pharmacy will be available to customers in 20 additional cities across the U.S. The pharmacies will be embedded in Same-Day Delivery sites, enabling faster delivery of medication to a customer’s door.
“Healthcare can take so much time, and only part of that is actually talking to a doctor,” said Lisa, who is an Amazon Pharmacy customer herself. “These innovations are looking at it from the patient's side. Delivering medicine to people who cannot get out and get them is just absolutely game changing.”
James Mattson, an Inventory Control Quality Assurance associate who has worked at Amazon for three years, said he’s most interested in how Amazon is integrating AI into both the customer and associate experiences.
“I’m impressed by some of the services I didn’t know that much about,” he said about the expanded selection and savings options for grocery shopping, and new AI Shopping Guides.
Likewise, he was eager to learn more about the new AI tech being rolled out in Amazon delivery vans like Vision-Assisted Package Retrieval (VAPR), which helps drivers find the right packages in just seconds. “When you see all this stuff firsthand—wow!” said James. “I think every employee is going to be blown away.”
If you’d like to become a Safety Ambassador, talk to your manager or Safety team to join your site’s Associate Safety Committee.
To check out news, photos, and more from Delivering the Future, visit About Amazon.
NEWS
1 minute to read
Three Takeaways on Our Sustainability Progress
Published:
Oct 01, 2024
Play Video
Amazon is committed to our sustainability efforts, and Operations teams play a critical role in turning these goals into reality. Recently during Climate Week, Andreas Marschner, VP Worldwide
Operations Sustainability, shared updates on the progress we’re making with electric vehicles, renewable energy, and packaging.
Watch the video above to learn more or read the summary of our 2023 Sustainability Report.
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