Warehouses can be extremely complicated places and warehouse logistics encompasses many specialized roles. This video from a few years ago shows one of Amazon’s large warehouses.
Amazon doesn’t make any physical objects. They sell everything online (for now), receiving product from thousands of different vendors and shipping them out to millions of customers. When all you do is “order fulfillment” you better be pretty good at it.
Amazon is a logistical behemoth!
Their entire business model is based on logistics. And the more efficiently you can ship stuff, the more profitable you will be.
The video shows many different types of warehouse logistics roles at Amazon. Order pickers walk around with carts, pulling product for each customer order. Forklifts unload trucks full of skids and skids of toys, electronics and books. Auditors verify the orders for accuracy and packers pack them to be shipped.
What you don’t see are the engineers responsible for designing and installing those large conveyor systems, the IT people maintaining the software and scanning systems, the analysts, the trucking coordinators, the dispatchers, customer service representatives and warehouse managers. It’s really a huge process, involving many different specialized roles.
For more details on these roles check out the “jobs in logistics” post. If you’re looking to upgrade your skills online, there are plenty of online logistics degree programs available.