This Kent, Washington facility is about 800,000 square feet. It opened in March 2016 as a dedicated robotics fulfillment center. Amazon has more than 175 fulfillment centers worldwide, including 35 dedicated robotics centers -- and the number is growing.
The Kent, Washington building has around 2,500 employees. Fulfillment center employees typically work 10-hour shifts, four days a week.
The robotics buildings are built specifically to accommodate the drive units. The flooring, for instance, has to be made from concrete of a certain grade.
The robots follow QR codes on the ground.
Each drive unit shuttles around thousands of pounds of merchandise. With a robotics building, Amazon can increase the inventory in a building by more than 40 percent.
There are more than 25 different box sizes in this building, which is a designated "sortable building" -- it houses items that fit into the yellow bins.
This building typically fulfills tens of thousands of orders a day. It has fulfilled more than 1 million customer orders within a span of 24 hours during peak holiday periods. It serves orders around the country but primarily orders from the Pacific Northwest.
The company plans to open several more robotics buildings before the holidays. Amazon is opening robotics buildings close to metro areas to more quickly serve customers. Some new buildings have opened in Dallas, Baltimore and Sacramento, which serves a large swath of Northern California.
At the entrance of the building, Amazon has hung up a few drive units signed by all of the facility's employees.
Amazon has been testing gamified interfaces in its fulfillment centers to create a sense of camaraderie among employees.