Oct. 13, 2022

Picture every South Dakotan standing under one roof, not even packed in shoulder to shoulder but with room to move.

That’s the capacity of the new Amazon fulfillment center on North Marion Road at Foundation Park, which opened earlier this month and ideally expects to add 144 employees per week until it reaches 1,500 workers.

“The entire population of South Dakota can fit in the building if we give ourselves 3 feet around,” general manager Tim Choate said.

More importantly, the fulfillment center when it is fully operational will accept 8 million items each week, sending 12 million items out to customers.

It also means Amazon customers in Sioux Falls and the tri-state area will receive next-day shipping on their orders. The items that depart this facility can be as small as a toothbrush or as large as a microwave oven or an Instant Pot. Items larger than that will be shipped from another facility.

“We are so happy to be in Sioux Falls and deliver to our customers here, and we are ecstatic to get going,” Choate said.

The 100-foot-tall building opened even though several other new facilities across the country have seen their schedules delayed. Amazon pushed on with the Sioux Falls facility because this is a market that needs the delivery speed, Choate said. In addition to the tri-state area, it also will include eastern Montana and eastern Wyoming.

“Amazon saw that needs to be a priority for people in the area, so we’re pushing that forward,” the general manager said. “We are in a market that needs the delivery speed. Amazon is about delivery speed.”

This is the second new fulfillment center that Choate has helped launch. He comes to Sioux Falls from Salt Lake City, where he spent four years. Originally from California, Choate joined Amazon 10 years ago as a picker, or an associate who works on the floor filling orders.

“I walked 20 miles a day,” he said.

Current associates will not put in nearly as many miles during a shift. Instead of the 16 to 20 miles once walked during a 10-hour shift, pickers now will cover about 2 miles.

Amazon has revised its system so the pickers stay in one place while yellow pods operated by blue robots on their base are brought to the associates’ stations. A light then shines on one of the pod’s multiple compartments, directing the picker to the item that has been ordered.

“These are next-generation robots,” said Vincent Gardner, an assistant site leader. Battery operated, when they need recharging, they send themselves to charging stations.

Thousands of robotics will operate in the fulfillment center when it is fully operational, Choate said. They do not replace human workers but enhance the work they do, he said.

“We have robotics not to replace employees but to help employees have an easier job,” he said. “We have the same amount of employees we have in the robotics side that we do in our non-robotics side. We are looking to help our employees have an ease of employment we like to say.”

Once the picker has collected everything a customer has requested, the items, which were placed in yellow bins, then are transported to the packing department.

Currently, Amazon has 80 pickers working in a small fraction of the five-story building’s 649,000 square feet. A total of 2.9 million will be the operating square footage when fully launched due to the additional floors. Shifts run from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. Four shifts will be offered: Sunday through Wednesday and Wednesday through Saturday.

“We will eventually operate 24 hours a day,” Choate said. “We’re looking to ramp up our 24-hour operation starting next week.”

About 80 pickers will work each shift. However, Amazon’s philosophy is to “train everybody in everything,” Choate said. “So when you come through the door, you’re going to be training in your primary job, for example, pick. But we’re going to train you to pack the boxes, and we’re going to train you to unload boxes.”

To ensure workers’ safety, Amazon has designed specialty vests that create an invisible shield, protecting them from the robot-operated machinery, Gardner said.

That concern for safety includes the proper handling of packages. At least once a week, five to eight associates will gather in a huddle on the packing floor to watch videos that stress how to work safely and in an ergonomically proper manner.

In a demonstration to the media Thursday, four Amazon associates practiced an exercise designed to strengthen ankles and learned how to bend from the hips when picking up packages. The videos are available in several languages, including Somali and French and also in American Sign Language.

“We want people to enjoy being at work and wonderfully employed,” Gardner said.

“Safety (is) the paramount issue we want to address,” Choate said. “We take the time to take our associates off the floor to stretch or to address any complaints they may have and to help them be successful.”

Amazon will focus on hiring to get to full strength over the next three to five months and “pretty continuously for the future,” said Scott Seroka, regional spokesman.

“We’re really trying to ramp up our operation,” he said. “The more people we have working here, the more packages we can get in, the better we can serve our customers, especially in the Sioux Falls area.”

Amazon offers a starting salary of $16 an hour with a differential for the night shift, Seroka said. Amazon’s benefits, which start on the first day of employment, are worth an additional $3.50 an hour.

Maintenance, security and other positions are open. Managers have come from Amazon facilities in California, Iowa and Nebraska, among other states, and about 16 management positions are being filled.

Amazon also offers programs such as Career Choice, which pays for an  employee’s college tuition. Future careers do not have to be tied to working at Amazon.

“If you want to be a doctor or a teacher, we provide the education,” Seroka said.

The fulfillment center’s dock currently operates with seven semi-trucks in and seven trucks out. When it is ramped up, that will increase to 60 trucks in and 80 out.

The fulfillment center in Sioux Falls is labeled FSD1, using a system that takes its identification from a city’s airport three-letter code.

Will there be an FSD2 someday?

“More to come?” Choate said, answering a question with a smile and another question.

Amazon already operates a delivery station in northeast Sioux Falls. It receives packages from the new northwest fulfillment center and also from other centers in the region.

Look inside the Sioux Falls Amazon location already operating – and ramping up to do more