The first thing that strikes us when we stroll through the grey turnstiles at the Amazon Fulfillment Centre is not how neat it is (it is very, as one would expect), but how… tranquil it seems. Who knew that the home of Amazon.sg (just launched here in October), a cavernous, labyrinthine 170,000 sq ft space in an industrial area in far-flung Toh Guan, would be such a picture of calm? It is also unusually quiet, despite this being a hub where hundreds of employees handle hundreds of thousands of products. Everything seems to be running like clockwork, it’s all under control, and there’s a sort of orderliness that would certainly please any control freak.
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1/141/14Online shopping fiends would be intrigued -
2/142/14Who, what, wares? -
3/143/14First, items are received at this dock -
4/144/14Items are then checked and scanned into the system -
5/145/14Products are then measured… -
6/146/14… And wrapped up at this Prep station -
7/147/14A stower then stores the products according to an unusual storage system -
8/148/14When an item gets ordered, a picker will place it in bins like these. -
9/149/14Yellow containers with the items are then sent to this spiral tower -
10/1410/14Everything is then consolidated here. -
11/1411/14They’re then packed into boxes at this station. -
12/1412/14Would it all fit? -
13/1413/14Boxes are then labelled. -
14/1414/14Orders are then put through a final check.