Amazon has officially opened its $70 million Perth inventory and delivery centre, which is about the same size as the WACA Ground, featuring a raft of autonomous technology.
Amazon has officially opened its $70 million Perth inventory and delivery centre, which is about the same size as the WACA Ground, featuring a raft of autonomous technology.
The 20,000 square metre Jandakot site, replacing Amazon’s former airport location, has increased its product selection by 500 per cent to house up to three million individual items.
The custom-built facility created an additional 100 roles alongside the existing 125 employees who are assisted by automation technology deployed across the packing warehouse.
During a tour of the warehouse, Business News witnessed the centre’s packaging technology in action. It allows packages to remain anonymous through autonomous labelling machines.
Each item also has a barcode which, when scanned, points employees to the correct size packaging envelope or box that fits its exact dimensions.
The 24-7 operation during the weekdays has the capacity to deliver up to 60,000 packages per day, with many of them available for next-day delivery.
Amazon Australia county manager Janet Menzies said the new facility was double the size of the former site to allow the company to offer faster delivery to Perth customers.
“We know we're competing in a really tough environment where our competitors are raising their game,” she said at the opening on Friday morning.
“And we, too, are doing the same because we want to make sure that people in Perth have access to a world class e-commerce experience.
“Western Australia has always been an important part of Amazon's journey and Perth was the location of our third fulfilment centre very early on in that journey.”
The Jandakot site also houses a disaster relief hub, which is a part of Amazon’s disaster relief program where essential items such as toiletries are housed for accessible distribution.
It also features a 1.5-megawatt solar panel system which is expected to generate 80 per cent of the centre’s power requirements.
Jandakot MLA Yaz Mubarakai said the centre was going to have a massive impact for small and medium businesses in WA.
He said Amazon’s investment reflected the market signals around online shopping trends.
“Clearly, Amazon understands the importance of these market signals, and has made this tremendous contribution right here in my electorate of Jandakot," Mr Mubarakai said.
“Now, it's not just about customers, or consumers, the main intention here is to support those small to medium sized businesses right across Australia, that are going to be able to interact with consumers more efficiently and making sure that those deliveries happen in record time.”
