Girls on Wheels Nancy Burns, Vicki Baker, and Karen Dipietro step behind the scenes at Amazon Fulfillment Center.
Vicki Baker
More than 353 million products for sale. On an average day, an estimated 13 million orders placed, equivalent to 536,238 product orders per hour or 8,937 orders per minute. An estimated 222 million consumers. Approximately 1.6 million packages delivered per day, equating to over 66,000 packages per hour and over 1,000 per minute. Yep, you guessed it. We’re talking about the eTail giant, Amazon.
Being avid online shoppers, Girls on Wheels were intrigued by what happens between the time we click “Buy” and the time the packages show up on our doorsteps a few days later. Lucky to snag slots on one of the coveted tours of the Amazon Fulfillment Center (DFW7) in Coppell, Texas, we got an insider’s view of the operation in action.
Donning headsets after a brief orientation, we stepped out onto the warehouse floor, led by actual Amazon employees who discussed their work based on firsthand experience.
It was a crazy-big, modern-day version of Santa’s Workshop. The facility can hold 18 football fields within its hundreds of thousands of square feet and employs more than 3,000 people. This small army of people, alongside tens of thousands of robots, work 24/7/365.
In a fenced-off portion, enormous, autonomous, four-sided, bookshelf-like robots danced around, covered in stuff, transporting shelves of products to employees. The robots, called back and forth by QR codes on the floor, changed direction with the sharp, angular precision of a Broadway dance ensemble. Other automated guided vehicles transported packages around the facility, and robotic arms worked alongside employees to help handle repetitive tasks such as picking, sorting, and stowing items.
Another area was full of rows and rows of conveyor belts, with people scanning items for intake or packing items to be shipped out. Standing on a narrow bridge overlooking the ground floor, we saw more conveyor belts covered in Amazon packages being loaded onto tractor-trailer trucks heading to distribution centers.
Amazon has secured its spot as the top e-commerce company across the globe, and Girls on Wheels got a peek behind the curtain for a look backstage. In awe of the scale and precision of its logistics, we observed firsthand the intricate supply chain in action—from the moment inventory arrives on massive truckloads to storage, picking, packaging, and final departure on an Amazon truck to our doorstep!
The sheer volume of packages constantly progressing throughout the tour made it easy to see how Amazon handles millions of purchases and often manages same or next day delivery. Whether we need protein powder, a Roku streaming stick, tennis shoes, or batteries, Amazon’s got us covered.