by Staff, on May 23, 2025 10:41:49 AM
Photo Credit: Amazon
Amazon to open a new robotics fulfillment center in Virginia, which is part of its efforts to leverage technology to improve efficiency within its supply chain.
Amazon is building its fourth Virginia robotics fulfillment center, RIC6, in Goochland County, creating more than 1,000 jobs, according to an announcement released by Glenn Youngkin, Governor of Virginia. RIC6 will be a 3.1 million-square-foot facility with a 650,000-square-foot footprint on a 107-acre parcel. Amazon’s plan to open this robotics fulfillment center builds on its ongoing efforts to utilize technology to improve efficiency within its supply chain.
In this robotics fulfillment center, Amazon employees will pick, pack and ship small items to customers. Amazon opened ORF3 in 2022 in Suffolk, and in 2023, Amazon announced ORF4 in Virginia Beach, which will launch later this year. The company launched RIC4 in Henrico County in 2024. In addition to the company’s HQ2 in Arlington, Amazon has 15 Whole Foods Markets, five Amazon Fresh stores, and three Same Day Sites in Virginia Beach, Richmond and Springfield.
“Having the right transportation infrastructure is essential to attracting and growing business,” says Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation W. Sheppard Miller III. “I am pleased that we could partner with Amazon to deliver a critical transportation project that directly supports their fourth robotic fulfillment center in the Commonwealth. Through our best-in-class SMART SCALE prioritization process, we were able to support this important transportation project and drive economic development.”
In 2023, Goochland County secured funding through the Commonwealth’s SMART SCALE prioritization process and the Central Virginia Transportation Authority’s regional transportation funding for a diverging diamond interchange at Ashland Road (Route 623). Less than a mile from RIC6, the new interchange will improve the flow of traffic and increase safety.
The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Goochland County on the project. The facility will be located at 2022 Ashland Road in Goochland County.
Amazon: 750,000+ Robots Sort, Lift, Carry Packages Through Its System
Amazon Robotics has deployed these nine robots across its operations, providing employees with the right technology to make their workday safer.
Amazon Robotics was founded more than a decade ago when Amazon acquired Massachusetts-based Kiva Systems in 2012. Since then, Amazon has developed, produced, and deployed more than 750,000 robots across its operations network.
The goal of robotics technology within Amazon’s operations is simple: pair employees with the right technology to make their workday safer, easier, and more productive, while delivering packages to customers faster than ever.
The scaling of these systems has reached a new crescendo with the recent launch of Amazon’s next-generation, state-of-the-art fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana, equipped with the latest innovations in robotics to support employees who package and deliver customer orders. This site uses eight different robotics systems that work in harmony to support package fulfillment and delivery.
Additionally, Amazon Web Services cloud computing infrastructure enables these robots to operate efficiently by storing and processing rich data generated by sensors, cameras, and machine processes. Amazon plans to scale these robotics systems to existing facilities across the network.
“Years of innovation have allowed us to build, test, and scale this unique, highly integrated suite of robotics systems that work to support employees fulfilling customer orders,” says Scott Dresser, Vice President of Amazon Robotics. “Thanks to advancements in AI, these technologies integrate seamlessly, and will help us drive an estimated 25% productivity improvement at next-generation fulfillment facilities. This allows us to deliver more efficiently for customers, while supporting the employees who make it happen.”
Sparrow supports employees who aggregate items for customer orders. This robotic arm picks up and moves individual items from containers into specific totes to send off to employees before they’re packaged.
Follow along the journey of the package through the eyes of the nine robots that are supporting the next generation of package fulfillment at Amazon:
- Sequoia: Stores and retrieves inventory for employees picking items for customer orders
- Hercules: Transports pods of items to employees picking items for customer orders
- Titan: Transports large and bulky items to employees
- Vulcan: Picks items at the top rows of inventory pods at fulfillment centers
- Sparrow: Detects, selects, handles and sorts individual products and places them in totes to give to employees before packaging
- Packaging Automation: Creates precisely-sized packages to fit an order’s dimensions, which eliminates using too much material
- Robin: Lifts and sorts packages before being brought to the outbound dock
- Cardinal: Lifts packages to gently and tightly place them into carts in a Tetris-like manner
- Proteus: Moves carts with packages to the loading dock to be loaded onto a truck.
Proteus works in conjunction with Cardinal—a robotic arm that loads packages into carts—to move those carts from the outbound dock area of the fulfillment center to the loading dock, where packages are loaded onto trucks.
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