Amazon’s Dunstable centre gears up for busiest time of the year with help from robots

As Christmas Day draws ever nearer, the Luton News has been given a behind the scenes peek at the work done at the Amazon fulfilment centre in Dunstable.

Since opening its doors in 2015 it has adapted to become a ‘robotic fulfilment centre’ and now employs 2,000 people, with hundreds of additional staff brought in during the Christmas season.

General Manager of the site, Omer Kartal, said: “This is obviously a very busy period for us. We’ve brought in hundreds of additional staff again this year, on top of our 2,000 permanent employees, and while it’s often incredibly busy for everyone, we make sure there are plenty of fun, festive activities as well."

Millions of items leave the site every week, with a significant increase at Christmas.

Rooftop solar panels provide much of the power needed to run the centre and also support charging for 1,800 robots. These are used across three floors to transport tens of thousands of tall pods, within which hundreds - or sometimes thousands - of different sized products are stored.

When one is ordered, software and AI technology provide a robot with the correct route to the pod, along with the quickest and safest way to travel to the perimeter of the robotic floor, where a staff member is ready to pick the item, and send it away to be packed.

Only trained technicians are allowed onto the robotics floor for maintenance, and they wear a special safety vest kitted out with AI technology, which sends a message to the robots to let them know someone is nearby, and they will immediately slow down and change their route.

Once a product is picked from the pod, it is sent downstairs via conveyors or chutes for packing, and will then make its way to a long conveyor belt highway, where it is scanned, and dropped by the conveyor at the correct sorting chute – dependant on its eventual location.

Omer said: “Sites like these are full of technology at Amazon. There are innovations that you can see – like the robots working alongside our staff – but there’s also a lot going on behind the scenes to make sure orders get to customers as swiftly and effectively as possible.”