Amazon only needs a minute of human labor to ship your next package 只要一分鐘人力 亞馬遜就可運送你的下個包裹！

By the time you take an Amazon delivery off your stoop, walk into your home, find a pair of scissors and open the brown box, you've already spent nearly as much time handling the package as Amazon's employees.

從你彎腰拿起亞馬遜快遞，然後就走進家裡，找一把剪刀，並打開盒子，你所花的時間已經幾乎要與亞馬遜員工處理包裹的時間差不多了。

With 22 years of experience in e-commerce and an obsession with efficiency, Amazon has brought remarkable optimization to the warehouses where it stores, packages and ships goods.

具有22年電子商務經驗及對效率的固執，亞馬遜為儲存、包裝、運送貨物的倉庫帶來前所未有的優化。

On a typical Amazon order, employees will spend about a minute total -- taking an item off the shelf, then boxing and shipping it. The rest of the work is done by robots and automated systems.

一筆標準的亞馬遜訂單，員工把物品從貨架上拿下來，然後裝箱並運送，總共只花費一分鐘，剩下的工作都交由機器人和自動化系統處理。

One day last month, Amazon let me tour its fulfillment center outside Baltimore. The site was a GM plant until it closed in 2005. As I stepped inside the massive facility, my guide handed me a pair of gray gloves so I could try out the jobs that humans do alongside thousands of robots.

上個月個月的某一天，亞馬遜讓我遊覽他們巴爾的摩的執行中心，那個場地是一個在2005年關閉的通用汽車工廠，當我踏進龐大的設備中，我的導遊遞給我一雙灰色手套，讓我能體驗人類在數千個機器人旁邊工作的感覺。

Amazon's addition of robots in 2014 allowed it to store 50% more inventory, according to the company. With the robots, Amazon can more tightly pack the bookshelves that hold items.

根據亞馬遜公司表示，在2014年新增的機器人可以儲存超過50%的存貨，有了機器人，亞馬遜可以將存放物品的貨架中的貨物放得更加緊密。

Amazon employees, called pickers, used to have to walk up and down long aisles of goods to find each item on a shelf. With its Kiva robots, these pickers now stand in place, meaning they can pick more goods per shift.

亞馬遜的員工，被稱為撿貨員，以前要來回上上下下穿梭長長的貨物走道，尋找貨架上的一項商品，有了Kiva機器人，這些撿貨員現在只要在定點，他們就可以一次取得更多的貨物。

The Kiva robots will slide under a relevant bookshelf, lift it slightly, and bring it to the picker. As the bookshelf sidles up next to the picker, a computer screen alerts the picker where the item is located on it.

Kiva機器人，會滑到比較下方的書櫃，並輕輕地舉起，把書櫃帶到撿貨員面前，當書櫃移到撿貨員旁邊時，電腦螢幕會有提示鈴告訴撿貨員物品是放在哪。

In Amazon's Baltimore facility, which ships items smaller than a breadbox, everything can fit on the shelves. The shelves are partitioned into cubbyholes. Some of the slots are stuffed with multiple items, such as a few T-shirts and a six-pack of deodorant.

亞馬遜在巴爾的摩的設備可以運送比麵包盒還小的貨物，任何東西都可以放在貨架上，貨架被劃分為小格，有些夾縫塞滿各種物品，像是幾件T恤和六入的止汗劑。

Once the item is scanned and placed in a yellow bin, the robot automatically drives away. Immediately, a new bookshelf that had been waiting its turn pulls up to the picking station, like a car in the line at a fast food drive-through.

一旦貨物被掃描並且放到黃色的箱子裡，機器人就會自動載走，另一個待命中的貨架就會立刻被拉到撿貨站，像是一台在速食店快車道的車子。

The yellow bins -- which are tracked as they move through the warehouse via their barcodes -- then meander along some of the eight miles of conveyor belts in each warehouse to another station, where an employee boxes the package.

黃色的箱子—他們經過倉庫時，就會透過條碼被追蹤—然後蜿蜒至一些倉庫裡八英里長的輸送帶，再送至另外一站，也就是員工將包裹裝箱的地方。

As the yellow bin arrives, a computer screen alerts the employee which size box to use.

當黃色箱子抵達時，一個電腦畫面會警示員工要用哪一個大小的箱子。

On our tour, we watched as some Amazon packers, the term for these employees, needed only 15 seconds to assemble the right box, add bubble wrap, tape the package, add a barcode and put it back on a conveyor belt.

在我們的導覽中，我們看到一些亞馬遜的裝箱員，用來形容員工的這個詞，只需要15秒就可以裝好對的箱子，包好泡泡紙，封好包裹，再貼上一個條碼，並放回輸送帶上。

Their speed is aided by a machine that spits out the perfect size of packing tape, depending on size of box being used. The only decision the packers have to make is how much bubble wrap to include.

他們的速度是由機器幫忙，根據使用盒子的大小，吐出完美尺寸的封箱膠帶，裝箱員唯一需要做的決定就是要包多少泡泡紙。

The careful coordination in Amazon's fulfillment centers is akin to a symphony. The buildings are remarkably loud too, making it tough to carry on a conversation amid the whirl of the conveyor belts.

亞馬遜執行中心的仔細合作就像是一首交響曲，這棟建築也很吵，很難在輸送帶的旋轉之中進行談話。

After a package is back on the conveyor belts, it goes through a machine where an address label is automatically stamped on the box. Some of these boxes don't even stop as a robotic arm descends and stamps the box with its final destination.

在包裹包好放回輸送帶後，它會穿過一台機器，自動在盒子上蓋上地址標籤，有些盒子甚至在機器手臂降下的時候都沒停止，就把最終地址蓋好了。

These packages then need to be directed to the right mail truck. As the boxes pass through what looks like a mini toll booth on the conveyor belt, red lasers scan them to determine where they need to be directed.

然後這些包裹需要被導向正確的郵件卡車，當盒子穿過輸送帶上像是迷你收費站的時候，紅色的雷射光會掃描它們，來決定他們要被送去哪。

When the package crosses in front of the appropriate chute, an automated bumper slides across the conveyor belt, sending the package to the right truck.

當包裹經過適當的斜道正前方時，一個自動的緩衝器會滑過輸送帶，把包裹送到對的卡車。

Then comes the last time an Amazon warehouse employee directly interacts with the package, as a person places it on a delivery truck.

Amazon said it has about 3,000 full-time employees in its Baltimore fulfillment center, which is nearly a million square feet.

然後來到最後一段步驟，一名亞馬遜倉庫的員工會直接處理包裹，將包裹放在運送貨車上。亞馬遜說巴爾的摩一百萬平方英呎的執行中心裡，約有3000名的全職員工。

Amazon hired 76,700 new employees in 2015 and 38,100 in the first six months of 2016 as it builds out its distribution network around the country. Even as its mastery of machines limits the employee input needed on each package, there's still a role for humans.

為了建造他們國內的配貨網絡，亞馬遜在2015年雇用了76,700名新員工，並在2016年的前半年雇用了38,100名員工，儘管機器的運用讓每一項包裹需要投入的人力受到限制，但還是有地方會需要人類操作的。