Earlier this year I picked up Invent and Wander, a compilation of Jeff Bezos’s annual shareholder letters. In it, Bezos mentions that Amazon opens its fulfilment centres for free public tours several times a week. I filed that away as something I had to do – and a couple of weeks ago, on a day off, I made it happen.
The destination: BRS2 in Swindon, named after the local airport. At 50,000m², it’s the size of six football fields, employs 3,000 people on site, and is threaded with 13 miles of conveyor systems. It’s one of 30 Amazon fulfilment centres across the UK, 20 of which are now robotically operated.
The Tour
Our guide Martin – a veteran of several years with the company – walked us through the entire operation over two hours, from inbound logistics to last-mile delivery. We were chaperoned by Franko and Lynette, who kept us in line and on-route (no wandering, and no photos).
Around the warehouse, I noticed signs referencing Amazon’s leadership principles alongside the 5S methodology, something I recognised from the Toyota Way.
Inbound
The process begins with goods arriving directly from manufacturers and third-party sellers. Over 50% of products on Amazon come from third-party resellers. Each item is quality-checked, scanned, and registered before being stored in yellow pods carried by robots called Hercules – capable of lifting up to 567kg, self-charging when battery runs low, and navigating via QR codes on the warehouse floor.
Storage follows a deliberately randomised system, inspired, apparently, by a Harry Potter book. The logic: clustering identical items in one location creates bottlenecks. Spreading them out and letting the AI track every individual item is faster. From the moment an order is placed, the target time to locate and collect the item is two minutes.
Outbound
Once an order is received, a robotic drive unit brings the relevant pod to a human picker, who selects the item and places it into a tote. That tote travels the conveyor network to the packing department, where orders are boxed or enveloped. Customer data is kept off the packing floor entirely to protect privacy.
Labels are lasered – not inked and blown onto packages rather than physically applied. AI-powered cameras inspect every package for condition before it leaves the building.
From there, packages go through SLAM (Scan, Label, Apply, Manifest) to receive their shipping label, then onto trucks heading to sortation centres and delivery stations.
Last Mile
Delivery associates and Amazon Flex drivers handle the final leg. And soon, potentially, drones. Martin mentioned that Amazon recently received an air licence in the UK, with a limited pilot already underway in Darlington – covering parcels up to 2.2kg within a 12km radius, with a target delivery time of under two hours.
The Bigger Picture
Amazon employs over 75,000 people in the UK. Fulfilment centre staff earn £15.30 per hour, work four 10-hour days (giving them three-day weekends), and receive a 10% product discount, private medical cover, and £3,000 towards training for in-demand roles. In 2025, Amazon committed to investing £40bn in the UK over three years, including four new fulfilment centres.
The question of AI replacing workers came up. Martin’s view was straightforward: AI handles repetitive tasks, freeing people for more complex, problem-solving work. No jobs at fulfilment centres have been lost to AI, he said.
I couldn’t help thinking that the tours themselves are part of this story — a deliberate effort to show the human side of an operation that’s easy to caricature. Whether that’s calculated goodwill or genuine transparency, it worked on me. It was a fascinating two hours.
Amazon fulfilment centre tours are free and open to the public several times a week. Worth doing if you get the chance.