1. My personal reaction to this video was that of total awe and admiration for Jeff Bozos, for being the visionary that he is. (Let us forget about those drones at the end. What is happening in the present is more relevant to us.) Here, I have to say that the automation system shown felt awesome to me. If you break it up, it becomes somewhat simple. Some people may say that conveyors, vacuum pads, intelligent software; these things are common today everywhere. However, what enthralled me was the genius of the person who saw the overall picture and continued to work on his vision. Reverse engineering is something like hindsight where everything becomes easy. Without the advantage of hindsight, the ability to be able to see the complete system in your mind from only parts and discrete ideas is a special quality of a special person.
2 Three terms/concepts/terms are
- ‘Automated Scanning and Segregation’ or “Automated Logistics”, which I have already discussed in answer 1 above.
- Inventory: The huge inventory, which we see having its own system of stocking so that things are obtained when required at the press of a button. We can see perhaps that there are alternatives to JIT in TQM/Six Sigma. Amazon will never go in for an inventory system, which costs more money as they will not be competitive otherwise. Therefore, Amazon must have a system, which ensures that all the goods shown are dispatched the same day and even if something is not dispatched, the retaining costs are lower than JIT.
(c) The word ‘Disruptive’ which Bozos utters a number of times.( He is referring to the Sustaining and Disruptive Technology concepts introduced by Christiansen in 1995-96).Amazon is already taking care so that they do not get caught with their pants down and are trying to discover disruptive technologies to their own sustaining technologies. An example of this is the drone delivery systems.
3. I would have queried Jeff Bozos on the economics of the Drone delivery systems. Because after all things have to be affordable. The Drones did not appear to have very long operating lives to me, considering the possibilities of strong winds, thunderstorms, bird hits, etc. What happens if a drone has to be discontinued after a couple of trips? How will the loss be covered? Moreover, unlike Apple, Amazon is based in the US with high labor costs. How will this affect the economics of the drone deliveries? This is all the more important as Amazon is in a business, which is extremely competitive i.e. on line retailing. Demand and Supply here has no flexibility at all. I would have liked to know Mr. Bozos reply, as he must have something in his mind vide which he plans to take care of these problems.
