Inside Amazon's Gigantic Robotic Hub Near Seattle
The Washington State facility employs 2,500 people and can store 40 million items.
ARLINGTON, Wash. — It's one of the biggest and busiest buildings in the Northwest. Amazon's latest fulfillment center in Arlington is the largest in Washington state - processing tens of thousands of orders every single day.
"This building is roughly 3 million square feet of storage so we can store up to 40 million items in the building," said Bruno Arnal, General Manager of the facility known as PAE2. "What we are doing, we are receiving inventory and we are storing inventory in the four floors above me. As soon as you buy on Amazon.com we will pick it, pack it and put it in a trailer to deliver it safely, efficiently and as fast as we can to your door."
But before your order reaches your door, every item goes through a labyrinth of conveyor belts and is handled by both humans and advanced robotics.
“We have two big phases. The first phase is called 'inbound,'” said Arnal. "A trailer comes, we unload the trailer, we transfer whatever is in the trailer into small totes, you will see them around the building, they are yellow totes that can store up to 30-inch. Then it's going to a Storer. A Storer is going to grab an item and put an item into a shelf, and the shelf is being moved by robots."
"If you click, I'm going to buy this one [on] Amazon.com, then as soon as you click, we will start the process called 'outbound,' which is going to put this item into a tote, the tote is going go from the third floor to [the] packing area," said Arnal. "We have two types of packing. One is what we call single shipment, where we would pack one item into one box, and the other one is multiple shipments."
In recent years, Booktopia has seen unprecedented growth in demand and reached its capacity at previous sites, using over 1.6km of conveyor belts to move books around at each site in Sydney.
In 2023, upon review of its supply chain, Grant Thornton recommended a solution including an overhaul of the company’s distribution centres, consolidating two sites into one and designing the new CFC which could leverage the latest in technology and automation.
Grant Thornton’s retail management consulting team helped design, program and monitor the custom-built CFC fitted with autonomous mobile robots from Locus Robotics to work alongside Booktopia’s team to improve product flow and pack books faster and more accurately.
Grant Thornton also supported Booktopia in procuring, managing, and sourcing a new warehouse management system, new infrastructure, packaging automation and conveyors. The CFC now has a one-way flow of books from receiving to dispatch, improving productivity and reducing manual handling. The flexible design allows ample space for future growth.
Booktopia CEO, David Nenke said, “The goal of this project was to bring Booktopia into a new era using the latest in automation and robotics to provide a better experience for our customers and our people. We are grateful for the support and guidance of Grant Thornton throughout this journey.
“Their retail management consulting team completely understood the importance of aligning the solution and design of our new CFC with our business strategy and customer needs. They have been a great partner for us and have helped us achieve our vision of becoming a world-class online book retailer.”
Grant Thornton partner of management consulting, Richard Bycroft added, “We are proud of our work with Booktopia on this project. It was a challenging but rewarding experience that showcased our capabilities in supply chain transformation, technology implementation, and change management.
“As project managers we believe it’s crucial to roll up our sleeves and we have worked closely with the Booktopia team on the ground to make sure their new distribution centres functionality was properly tested, worked as scoped, had effective material flows designed around it, Standard Operating Procedures written, and team members were thoroughly trained.
“We are happy to see the early positive signs of the impact of our work on Booktopia’s day-to-day business operations and the benefits that are helping to improve the customer experience. We look forward to continuing our relationship to help Booktopia achieve their future goals.”
Once packed, the orders move on to more robots.
"They're going to the AR sort station - Amazon Robotic sortation platform, and it's going [to] sort points, which is a zip code. And then go to a trailer and at the trailer we go to a delivery station downstream to go to a customer."
To protect their workers, Amazon employees work at several different stations during a work week to avoid repetitiveness. That's just one of many reasons Marysville resident Dominique Grashoff has loved working here ever since she first walked in the doors.
"I was like, this is for me. It is chaotic, it is moving so fast. It's everything that my mind and I need," said Grashoff. "I started at the facility when we launched here back in August, and I was promoted within three months."
Though Amazon's Arlington fulfillment center is still less than a year old, the 2,500 plus locals who work here have already made it one of the best fulfillment centers in the country.
"The building is thriving, the building is growing very well. Snohomish County is very supportive of this building as well," said Arnal. "These are the things that are exciting to show, and to brag about."
