Amazon unveiled a $400m warehouse in Sydney’s west that’s within a 12 hour drive of 80 per cent of Australia, in a major win for Aussie shoppers wanting faster deliveries.
The Horsley Park facility can hold more than 10 million items and will create 1,000 jobs for locals across entry-levels, operations, HR and engineering.
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The ceremonial ribbon cutting was done by Wayne Angus, Director of Operations, Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone, and Councillor Kevin Lam.
Fairfield City Council Mayor Frank Carbone attended the event and said that the facility would have a positive impact on small businesses and the local community.
“The fact that Amazon has invested in Western Sydney, it actually shows that we matter, and it actually shows that Western Sydney’s coming of age, it’s growing,” Mr Carbone said.
“Being here today really showcases the enormity of the whole process, of the jobs and the size and scale of the whole facility.
Amazon has unveiled its latest distribution centre in Western Sydney. Picture: Amazon
“And these locations are perfect because you have … all these feeder roads that really connect and really take the trucks off the local roads, which is important,” he said.
Director of Operations for Amazon Australia Wayne Angus said the facility is approximately the size of 4.5 Sydney Opera Houses.
“It is huge, and so as a result of that, what we are able to do is increase the inventory we store in these facilities,” Mr Angus said.
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The warehouse is capable of storing 10 million items. They are stored randomly to minimise congestion.
“What that will allow us to do is increase the breadth of our selection to our customers … and increase the speed at which we’re able to get to our customers,” he said.
Most grocery stores hold around 25,000 individual products but Mr Angus claimed Amazon had millions, which made inventory management critical.
“So what you’re wanting to do is find that intersection point between selection and speed,” Mr Angus said.
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The facility employs 1,000 locals and offers permanent employees subsidised health insurance for the entire family, free life insurance, up to 20 weeks parental leave pay and free Amazon Prime membership.
“If you look at Western Sydney, we’ve got four warehouses now in Western Sydney, all four of those warehouses have different selections, but some is common and some shared.
“Amazon has a tech base that is extremely sophisticated and we use that tech base to do a number of different things.
“Firstly, we try to put the item as close to the customer as we possibly can before they are purchasing.
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While the facility is yet to start operating at full capacity, some packages have already been shipped from the new warehouse.
“The second part is when you buy a coffee cup, for example, are you going to buy a cell phone at the same time?
“Probably not, but therefore we try and figure out what the association buying is,” he said.
The warehouse has already begun shipping products and is equipped with state-of-the-art sortation systems, solar panels, and energy efficiency features like motion sensor lights.