Amazon management cut a ceremonial ribbon at a new 3.8-million-square-foot fulfillment center in Windsor Tuesday, about six months after beginning operations in the massive, five-story building.
Gov. Ned Lamont and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and other political leaders were on hand to praise the more than 3,500 full- and part-time jobs it will offer when fully staffed, lauding benefits that include higher-education subsidies.
“I tell anybody who’s thinking about a job right here, you wouldn’t believe it in there,” Lamont said. “Get rid of your old stereotype of what a warehouse is. It’s robotics and it’s IT. And it’s incredible, the opportunities you heard described, in how you can keep learning while you are earning. That means Amazon is a partner.”
State Sen. Doug McCrory (D-Hartford) also spoke highly of Amazon’s response to nooses that repeatedly appeared on the construction site in 2021. The company reached out to minority leaders and businesses, he noted. He expressed confidence Amazon would connect with local high schools and community colleges to provide opportunities for local residents.
McCrory said he was able to speak directly with top Amazon leaders to develop a response to the crisis.
“One of the best things Amazon did was they listened,” McCrory said. “They listened to me. They listened to people from my community, and we worked things out.”
The distribution center is Amazon’s second fulfillment center in Windsor. It’s where orders are assembled for shipment to a smaller “last mile” facility, which serves as the final destination for goods before they are delivered to customers. Windsor also hosts a last mile warehouse.
The Kennedy Road facility offers the most modern version of Amazon’s distribution process, where an army of 5,465 “Hercules” robots move around roughly 10-foot-tall stacks of goods called “pods.”
The robots look like an oversized, low-slung metal box on wheels. They zip along to the right pod, tuck underneath it, and then lift and zip it over to a human worker on the periphery. The employee then picks up the order and puts it into a bucket to trundle along 17 miles of conveyors and down shoots, for packaging and shipping to last-mile delivery centers.
Robotic arms help lift, sort and stack heavier items. The robots in the facility are designed and built at Amazon Robotics locations in North Reading and Westborough, Massachusetts.
“The robots make the shelves come to the people so they can pick it up right there,” said Gurol Botun, general manager of the facility. “There are not a lot of steps they are putting in. So, it’s a safer operation but it’s also a more efficient operation.”
The new building is Amazon’s third fulfillment center in the state. Others exist in Windsor and North Haven.
Botun said it is an 11th-generation building, with each version getting “bigger, safer, faster and more efficient.”
Amazon leaders insist humans remain an essential part of the process.
“It’s for sure making it safer,” Botun said of the use of robots. “It’s for sure making it more efficient. But this building can be a prime example. We launched six months ago and we have hired over 2,000 people and we are looking to hire another 1,500.”
