Amazon patent graphic for railroad sourcing

“Amazon wants its inventory everywhere”, writes Supply Chain Dive (Nov. 8, 2019). It is expanding its network of fulfillment locations with a focus on intermodal containers. Intermodal-based fulfillment, as Amazon’s patent application describes it, would allow the company to fulfill orders from rail, truck or ship. Here are the steps in the patent:

• 1. Load intermodal container with inventory.
• 2. A robotic system picks and loads items onto drone.
• 3. Launch and retrieval system puts the drone in appropriate position for take-off.
• 4. Drone departs container through opening in the roof.
• 5. Drone travels to a customer’s home, delivers package.
• 6. Drone meets back up with the container at a pre-calculated rendezvous point.
• 7. Variety of sensors track container’s location.

But wait, drones need new batteries, their propellers might break, and without a human in the loop how does this operation keep running smoothly? Amazon thought of this. One of the details included in the patent application is a maintenance container where drones can have a robotic technician replace propellers or batteries. Amazon says containers could be loaded with inventory before the launch of a book or video game in anticipation of demand spikes, placing inventory in locations where it expects orders.

To compete with brick-and-mortar locations, Amazon wants to cut down on delivery time making it just as convenient to hit order on the marketplace as it is to drive down the road. But this requires a complex network of inventory in fulfillment and sortation centers across the country. It has already promised one-day delivery for a variety of SKUs. Amazon claims drones will enable 30-minute delivery. Making this happen will not just require drones, but a vast web of SKUs across the country.

Read more at OM in the News: Amazon Marries Drones and Intermodal

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