Outside of Amazon’s new distribution center near the Sacramento International Airport, skip loaders and backhoes are moving dirt to prepare for landscaping. Inside, crews are installing miles of electrical wiring and 20 miles of conveyor belts.
The center is huge at 855,000 square feet, but will handle orders of smaller items, less than 18 inches in diameter.
Amazon's Ashley Robinson said some of the work filling orders at the facility will be done by hundreds of robots.
"With robotics we can have 50 percent more inventory in a fulfillment center than we would compared to a traditional facility and it enables us to fulfill customer orders faster," Robinson said. "So it cuts down the fulfillment speed from hours to minutes."
Robots won't do all the work. Amazon plans to hire 1,500 full-time employees.
The building will also have a career center. The company pays up to 95 percent of the cost for employees to go back to school.
The company hopes to begin operations in early fall.
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