Amazon opens specialized fulfillment center in Kansas City market
Amazon’s newest supply chain hub is a first-of-kind facility for the Kansas City metro area.
The e-tail giant is debuting its first fulfillment center in Liberty, Mo. The facility is Amazon’s first in the metro specializing in heavy and oversized items. According to the company, the more-than-one-million-square-foot hub will create more than 500 jobs and currently employs approximately 150 workers.
At the center, associates work alongside automated technologies to pick, pack and ship larger customer items such as mattresses, large TVs and exercise equipment, in addition to warm-weather seasonal products such as grills, kayaks and trampolines. Items handled by this type of facility are typically longer than 96 inches or greater than 50 pounds.
Amazon reorganizes U.S. fulfillment network
Until recently, Amazon operated one national U.S. fulfillment network that distributed inventory from fulfillment centers spread across the entire country. If a local fulfillment center didn’t have the product a customer ordered, Amazon would ship it from other parts of the country, costing more and increasing delivery times.
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As Amazon’s fulfillment network expanded to hundreds of additional nodes over the last few years, distributing inventory across more locations and connecting the central fulfillment center to it delivery station nodes became more challenging.
In 2022, Amazon started moving from a national fulfillment network to a regionalized network model. This included upgrading placement and logistics software, processes, and physical operations to create eight interconnected regions in smaller geographic areas.
Each of these regions can operate in a self-sufficient way, while still being able to ship nationally when necessary. Amazon is also continuing to develop advanced machine learning algorithms to better predict what customers in various parts of the country will need, so that it has the right inventory in the right regions at the right time.
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Amazon automates the supply chain
Amazon has already been employing more than a dozen types of robotic systems in its supply chain facilities around the world, including sort centers and air hubs. In June 2022, Amazon announced “Proteus,” its first fully autonomous mobile robot.
Amazon also introduced Cardinal, a robotic lifting arm that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to efficiently select one package out of a pile of packages, lift it, read the label, and precisely place it in a cart.
More recently, the retailer acquired Belgium-based Cloostermans, which designs and manufactures mechatronics solutions, robotic technology that Amazon will use to help move and stack heavy palettes and totes, or package products together for customer delivery.
Amazon builds out Kansas City fulfillment infrastructure
The new fulfillment center joins an Amazon sortation center that opened in August 2022, also within the Liberty Commerce Center. Amazon has 12 operational locations in the Kansas City region with more than 6,000 associates. Amazon has opened seven facilities in the Kansas City metro on both sides of the state line since 2021, including fulfillment centers, sortation centers, delivery stations and a same-day delivery facility.
“It’s a privilege to further our investment in Liberty to meet the growing customer demand for larger items in the Kansas City metro, while also creating career opportunities for the community,” said site leader Jyoti Sharma. “Amazon is proud to offer all kinds of jobs for all kinds of people.”