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Comment by iLoveOncall | Hacker News Reader

> For instance, the shelved/dry goods sections of Fresh warehouses are notorious for being a trainwreck, with items sort of strewn in the general area of where the inventory/pick list says they should be, rather than being neatly arranged. If an employee on picker duty stands around browsing a shelf too long to find the item they're supposed to grab (but can't find it, because it's been shuffled several feet down the shelf)...the cameras monitoring generates an automated warning that goes to your management. Mark the item as out of stock / missing from inventory instead? Get a warning when someone else finds it and scans it later that day, or when inventory is next reconciled. It's a no-win situation.

I would like to see any evidence you have to support any of those issues, because having visited an Amazon fulfilment center myself, I can guarantee you that the problems with picking items you mention literally cannot happen.

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It's pretty easy to imagine both of these things being true, and the one fulfillment center you visited having substantially less than 13k disciplinary notices. I worked 7 years in industrial staffing for a variety of large distribution centers (not Amazon), and the automated discipline systems in place around voice-pick efficiency were borderline draconian.

The real question is, are there any examples of companies achieving what Amazon is achieving at its scale, *without* employing these techniques? And if so what are they doing differently?

I think the closest you’ll get is Costco, but obviously their distribution model isn’t super comparable. (They do have some similarities though, especially in how they make a lot of their profit from a yearly subscription)

That’s not the the real question. The real question is “what is the maximum amount of productivity that our culture will accept beyond which it considers the burden inhumane?”

For example, in antiquity, slavery was acceptable.

Even more recently, Taylorism. I mean, yeah, it's good for robots but not for people.

When people design systems they should consider the humanity of such systems despite the issue of people knowingly and maliciously short-circuiting things.

Even if the answer is a clear "no" that doesn't make this case acceptable.

What do you want to achieve? Inhumane world for the sake of tiny productivity gain?

I never said that the punishments are not possible, just that the processes in place and just the basic way Amazon FCs work prevents the picking issues from happening.

I've never worked for Amazon but have worked in a couple of warehouses, I'm trying to envision any system that involves a lot of humans working as quickly as possible while still making it impossible to have out of place items...I'd love some more detail on how this works.

There are TONS of videos and photos leaked by workers that demonstrate how much of a disaster some of the Fresh warehouses are, e.g. a particularly egregious example where there are dozens if not hundreds of products fallen from bins, smashed to bits in the aisle by picker foot traffic: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonUFF/comments/skmtto/so_disgus...

>I can guarantee you that the problems with picking items you mention literally cannot happen.

That's a very bold statement. Guarantee that something can't go wrong? Where do I put my money on this bet?

I can assure you, as someone who has both visited multiple fulfillment centers as well has worked on the inventory systems that manage them, that this literally happens thousands of times per day.

Both of your experiences are purely anecdotal but I would explain away the difference in your opinions as the difference being "someone I know who worked there" versus "I visited (a potentially curated) fulfillment center once".

To be more clear I visited an Amazon FC during the first week when I joined Amazon in one of their operations teams, in which I have then spent 4 years.

There are processes in place and physical things that are completely different from what the original commenter says and those things prevent the issues (having items on another shelf multiple feet below where they should be) from being possible.

Another ex Amazon guy here. I visited the Dunfermline FC, did picker training, and shadowed a picker for an hour. I also followed company email lists and FB groups for years. It became extremely obvious to me that what I saw in my curated experience was nothing like what I was hearing from the other FCs.

So, even though from my experience I can't see how items could be 'shuffled' out of their bin by mistake (other than falling on the floor and being chucked in an amnesty bin or onto a random shelf, but that seems like a rare case) I also wouldn't find it super surprising to find an FC which just uses a completely different way of organising stuff.

That said, I wasn't in ops. Perhaps you had a much better birds eye view of every single FC organisation scheme? More details would be greatly appreciated.

The radio plays what they want you to hear...

A close family member worked in an FC for 3 years. They agree that what the original commenter said happens ALL the time. Maybe you were only shown a shiny new FC, but the older ones are often much less organized. Depends a lot on local management too.

Fresh warehouses are verrrry different than the robotic one you probably visited. I’m not surprised at all that a fresh building would have those problems.

I’ve never been in one, but I’m imagining a Whole Foods without a front door or windows?

Some are hybrid plants. FBA in one section, Fresh in another. They recently opened a center in Huntington Beach that does both.

> the problems with picking items you mention literally cannot happen.

How?

You're saying that you guarantee it?

Congratulations. The burden of proof is now on you. Please prove your claim.

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