Amazon have announced they will be constructing a 200,000 sqm high tech, robotic warehouse in Western Sydney. This is part of Amazons drive to push further into the retail market in Australia. The location is close to the Western Sydney International Airport in the Oakdale West Industrial Estate. The construction will generate an expected 700 jobs, and the warehouse operations a further 1,500 new jobs.
The investment in the facilities is pegged at $500 million and is necessary in order to keep pace with increased demand coming from Australian consumers for online shopping. The warehouse will be capable of housing 11 million different products. The scheduled completion will be in 2021.
The facilities will feature Amazons high tech, robotic warehouse infrastructure. Amazon have several of these worldwide, it will be the first of its kind in Australia, and indeed in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Amazon robotic technology still uses humans to select the items. But then instead of the staff walking to the shelves to find the product, the robotics will bring the shelves to the employee. That increases efficiency and reduces the amount of walking the staff need to do. The video below shows the Amazon robotic warehouse technology.
Amazon got off to a slow start in 2017 in the Australian due to a lack of product selection available. However over the years with its revenue going up to $560 million in 2019. Despite this, the company is still struggling to turn a profit.
This increase in demand for online shopping has also pushed Amazon to earlier this month announce a new distribution facility to be constructed in Brisbane with another multi-million dollar facility.
