This fourth post in the series on the inner workings of the Amazon Fulfillment Center will continue to look at the outbound material flow, including pack, SLAM, and the loading of the trucks. In the next and last posts, I will also look at the software behind it as well as some surrounding processes.
Continue reading The Inner Workings of Amazon Fulfillment Centers – Part 4
This is the third post on my series on the inner workings of the Amazon Fulfillment Center. In this post I start with the highly interesting process of the outbound value stream (i.e., how the goodies go from storage to your door). Since this is the core process, the next post will continue this outbound value stream.
Continue reading The Inner Workings of Amazon Fulfillment Centers – Part 3
This is the second post in my series on the inner workings of Amazon Fulfillment Centers. In this post I will look at the typical layout of the fulfillment centers and start with the inbound value stream. After all, while we all are looking forward to getting stuff from Amazon, Amazon first has to get the stuff from somewhere else.
Continue reading The Inner Workings of Amazon Fulfillment Centers – Part 2
Recently I had the chance to visit two Amazon Fulfillment Centers to take an in-depth look at their inner workings. While many articles about Amazon go over the basics, I will give you a deep dive into the workings of their fulfillment centers. Due to the amount of information, I divided the content across a series of posts. In this first post I will go through their general layout as well as their Kiva robotics system. Continue reading The Inner Workings of Amazon Fulfillment Centers – Part 1
Sometimes you would like to put more material in a single FIFO lane than the space you have available. In this case you would have to use a combination of two or more parallel FIFO lanes. In my last post I described how to maintain a strict FIFO sequence in parallel lanes. This post looks at an easier but less accurate method. Continue reading Maintaining Weak FIFO in Parallel FIFO Lanes
FIFO lanes are a common and easy way to manage material flow. However, sometimes there is not enough space to make a long FIFO lane. In this case the FIFO lane is often split into multiple sub-segments. This post looks at how to maintain strict (or strong) FIFO in such parallel FIFO lanes. Continue reading Maintaining Strong FIFO in Parallel FIFO Lanes
In my last post I presented you Rajan Suri’s Power of Six – the relation between turnaround time and product cost. In this post I extend his work to apply it to not the entire value stream but to segments of the value stream. Enjoy! Continue reading The Power of Six: Time and Money for Parts of Your Value Stream
Time is money. You know that. But with respect to product cost and lead time, there is a rule of thumb that estimates this relation. Let me present to you the “Power of Six,” discovered by Rajan Suri. This gives you a rough estimate of how the lead time of your products influences the cost and vice versa. This first post looks at the original work, and my next post applies this rule also to segments of the value stream. Continue reading The Power of Six: Relation between Time and Money in Manufacturing