20 May 2026

Season 8, Post 18: Delivering smiles (and toilet paper)

If you were to drive from central London to Dartford, the journey would take about an hour and cover 20 miles. Were you to take all the conveyor belts out of Amazon’s LCY3 fulfilment centre and lay them end-to-end, they would stretch the same distance. Visitors to one of Amazon’s most modern warehouses learn useful trivia such as this. More importantly, they can gain privileged insights into the future of robotics, automation and advanced logistics.

The 500,000 square-foot building is immediately recognisable by the Amazon logo on its side. The message “delivering smiles” is branded across the entrance. The 3,000 employees on site are told they will “work hard, have fun and make history.” LCY3 is one of Amazon’s 31 UK fulfilment centres. It is a ‘generation-10’ site, meaning it is among the most advanced sites operated by Amazon outside the United States.

LCY3 probably distributes over 100m packages annually, with hundreds of thousands of packages processed and shipped daily. The fulfilment centre runs on a 24-7 schedule throughout the year. Our host said that it is operating “at peak” almost all the time. On our tour we got to see the full process, from inbound arrival of goods to be sold, to packages leaving the warehouse.

Most striking was the level of automation. Amazon’s system is fully proprietary, we were told. Beyond the extensive conveyor network, robotic devices move trolleys filled with products for distribution seamlessly around a grid structure. They stop at picking stations, and a combination of laser and sensor technology tells staff which items to select for order fulfilment. Robots also help unstack totes (bins of products) as well as complete the SLAM process (scan-label-apply-manifest) to final packaged goods.

Amazon has long been recognised as an innovator in the field of technology. The company continues to push boundaries. Our tour guide told us that it will begin trialling drones (or ‘Prime Air’) at one of its warehouses in northern England shortly. In our own work, we have consistently made the case for robots, humanoids and drones, while arguing that warehouses are the unsung heroes of the modern world. Think about the journey your toilet paper has been on – apparently the most ordered item for next-day delivery on Amazon Prime in the UK – when it arrives at your home.

21 May 2026

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