Most consumers have already accepted this as a normal thing. They go to Amazon, search for the book or coffee maker they like, click on it and next day at the door from home without further hassle. No matter how common it has become, no one pays attention anymore, but after hides a big rig Warehouses, order takers, shipping routes, distributors and many technologies to organize everything and timely delivery of orders.
In the case of Alicante, a gigantic mechanism with its last ring logistics station built by the North American multinational in the industrial zone of Llano del Espartal, next to the A-31 highway, All packages delivered in the province and in neighboring Albacete.
In total, more 23,000 packages per day On a normal day, when only 35% to 40% of its actual capacity is used, facilities rush of orders recorded at special times. Black Friday – already inseparable accompaniment cyber monday– or campaign Christmas. Real litmus tests for the company, where the number of packages to manage has practically doubled.
At the head of these facilities 8,000 square meters and his team 50 permanent workers what drives them Patricia Galindo, arrived from Malaga logistics station to start the one in Alicante. A female boss who greets workers she encounters by name and often with an affinity that has nothing to do with the cold image of a multinational corporation or such facilities. Now staff has just grown with 30 temporary employeesStrengthen the service for the upcoming high shopping season.
Duties of logistics stations, get packages arriving in big trucks and to classify them For distribution on different routes that pickup trucks have to perform for door-to-door delivery of orders, known as cargo delivery in the logistics world. “The Last Mile”.
Up in the distribution chain logistics centersi.e. department stores where Amazon is located recover millions of products you sell and its associated companies, some of which are fully automated, such as the newly opened company in Onda in Castellón. Currently, the company has ten across Spain and where are there make packages with orders.
Amazon also has two half-mile distribution centers in Getafe (Madrid) and Barberá del Vallès (Barcelona) and more than twenty logistics stations operating 24 hours a day, such as in Alicante.
delivery cycle
the cycle begins night from thenwhen they start to arrive trucks From logistics centers with all orders made by customers in the provinces of Alicante and Albacete. As soon as the packages are unloaded, a conveyor beltwhere multiple employees are scanning Barcode They throw a sticker that the computer system creates for each packet to guide the box or envelope through the different passages where the circuit is divided.
It’s a kind of scalextric that gets the order closer to your zip code. After entering the designated area, employees of this department scan the label again – this time with a mini reader they wear the packages on a finger like a ring so they can hold them and are tasked with placing them in colorful bags that will be loaded into the vans.
It’s a more delicate process than it seems, because each package has to fit together as if it were. a Tetris game it’s about optimizing the space and letting the delivery guy get them out to order. marked route.
Here are the programs Artificial intelligence is the key to calculating every route and assigning every van. more efficient travel for this, the distance of different delivery points is taken into account, for example. But in addition to that, the program fixes it. If one day it detects that the delivery man cannot complete the route within the specified time, it records fewer orders for that route the next day. And vice versa, the number of packages increases, according to Galindo, if it appears to be finished earlier.
Some of those responsible for door to door delivery 400 deliverers belonging five companies some are openly subcontractors formed to work for a North American multinational that has a special program to promote such an enterprise.
This situation Allzone Logistics, property of Cadiz Adrian MontielAfter working with one of the contractors in his home country, he took the opportunity to start his own company, taking advantage of the opening of the logistics station in Alicante. Responsible for distribution in Alicante city and Elche. An area where, according to the entrepreneur, the most complicated thing is usually to find addresses in the different rural areas surrounding the urban core of the city of Vinalopó, but the app owned by the Elche Local Police helps them with the task.
Faced with the bad reputation of the goods distribution industry, one of the sources of so-called false self-employment, Montiel their deliverers have been hiredwith approximate salary 1.200 Euros per month, We should add the bonuses they get for different concepts. It is also monitored that no one works more than two weekends and schedules are meticulously controlled, as Amazon is so strict in respecting working and safety conditions for both its own employees and partners.
Therefore, at the logistics station in Alicante, for example, only packs up to 1.2 meters and they can’t reach 23 kilosSince they think that two people of that weight should be carried, they cannot be left in the hands of vehicles with one worker. To do this, the firm has created a special division called Amazon XL and responsible for the delivery of large devices, among other products.
rural areas
In the season cycle, the first deliveries out are a special program where the company has developed packages for rural areas delivered to a local store it is then responsible for deploying them to its own domain. These are the minibuses that leave at nine in the morning. As of 10:30, direct delivery vehicles start to move with a millimetric organization: every 20 minutes you have to load and pass 40 pickup trucks so everything goes on time.
In the afternoon, there will be another game with orders. same day deliverypossible as long as the product is available at the logistics center in Murcia.
Meanwhile, station workers prepare the facilities for the next round and are responsible for managing incoming orders. return or those in address not found. It’s a slightly more common occurrence in the state, according to Amazon’s manager in Alicante. presence of foreign residents and visitors this, or they were not clarified when putting your address correctly or, for example, they receive their order when they return to their country.
The company has a team dedicated to communicating with customers of these orders to resolve matters, and in almost all cases, they are resolved in less than a day. And if one thing is clear at Amazon, the key to the success of the business is that customers can trust their orders to come.
In addition to the above, the e-commerce company has other types of associated facilities in these cities that are not large enough to have their own logistics stations and are also used in areas far from the latter but with a significant volume. orders. There is one of them in the city denial, where some are ruled 5,000 packages per day.