Venture Melton team gets a glimpse at the inner workings of Amazon
Last week the Venture Melton team visited one of our newest and biggest employers, Amazon, at the company’s new Ravenhall fulfillment centre, to gain an insight into how a facility of this scale operates and meet some of the locals that work there.
There we saw first-hand more than 200 jobs that Amazon have created, while improving delivery outcomes for customers around Melbourne.
The City of Melton is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia with our current population of 181k expected to double by 2050. Creating local jobs in Melbourne's West, is a key part of supporting this growth.
Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos from his garage in Bellevue, Washington. Initially an online book store, it has expanded into a multitude of product categories: a strategy that has earned it the moniker ‘The Everything Store’.
Opened in 2021, the Ravenhall site spans 37000sqm. That’s almost the equivalent of two MCGs, and is an impressive example of Amazon’s scale.
Local Site Lead Anna Reid is a strong advocate for generating jobs in the West of Melbourne and pointed out that during peak times, Amazon will continue to require additional workers.
She encourages local jobseekers to apply when these become available, even if they feel they lack warehouse experience.
Anna explained that Amazon is focused on attracting candidates that possess key attributes, such as a willingness to learn and being safety focused, rather than those with previous warehouse experience.
New team members are known as ‘associates’, and undergo comprehensive on-the-job training when starting their career at an Amazon fulfilment centre. Anna said that ongoing refresher training and career development opportunities are a firmly embedded part of Amazon’s culture.
Amazon’s success story is underpinned by a high level of technological integration, that makes its complex and fast-paced processes both efficient and consistent at the highest quality level.
It is this technology, along with its people, that allows Amazon to meet its delivery promises and provide a customer experience that is second to none, Anna said.
The Venture Melton team was fascinated by Amazon’s innovative “Random Stow” system, in which not all units of a particular product are stored in the same location.
Instead they are stored anywhere where there is room and a gap in a storage bin – for example toys might be stored in the same storage bin as appliances and towels.
Once in place items are scanned and logged against the bin item code, with the result being a highly decentralised storage system that retains one hundred percent traceability.
Every item can be instantly located and as one product can be spread out across a multitude of bin locations in the warehouse, it can be accessed faster.
Another advantage of this system is that during times of peak demand for a particular product, for example if an item goes on sale, team members are less likely to obstruct walkways as they will not all pick from one location.
The Venture Melton team are currently working on a range of projects with Amazon aimed at brining value to our business network community.
We look forward to sharing more on some of these initiatives with you soon.