Technological Change by Clotilde Coron & Patrick Gibert

Author:Clotilde Coron & Patrick Gibert [Clotilde Coron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
Published: 2020-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

Box 3.7. Amazon and prescriptive technology (sources: reports and various websites5)

Amazon, an online business founded in 1994, initially specializing in book sales, has gradually diversified, first into cultural products and then into all types of products. The company employs more than 500,000 people worldwide.

The management of storage warehouses is a crucial issue for e-commerce companies. Amazon has been the subject of several reports about working conditions in its warehouses, which are considered degrading for employees. The work is highly robotized. For example, to limit employee movement within the warehouse, and knowing that products are not organized by theme but by size, employees are equipped with scanners that tell them where to pick up the products constituting an order or group of orders. Each product is geolocated. Products are scanned very regularly by employees to validate and control the content of orders: when they are received in the warehouse, when the product is picked up on the shelf, when it is packaged, among other things.

Finally, the work of Amazon warehouse employees is largely regulated by machines (scanners that tell them where to go to get the next product, for example). This robotization process, which aims for greater productivity and a reduction in lead time as well as delivery errors, therefore results in a high level of technological work prescription.

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