Best investmet that Amazon made

KIVA

Kiva Robot

Kiva's technology is another way to improve productivity by bringing the products directly to employees to pick, pack and stow," said Dave Clark, Amazon's vice president of global customer fulfillment.
Kiva's robots bring the product shelves to a warehouse worker, rather than a worker walking to the shelves. The robots locate the items in a customer's order, move the products around warehouses and help get packed boxes to a final loading dock.

Employee using Kiva system

The robots—squat, orange cubes—zip around shipping centers loaded with inventory shelves stacked several feet into the air above them. The robots can be tailored to each particular client, with customized software

Kiva was founded in 2003 by its chief executive, Mick Mountz, who served as an executive at Apple Inc and Webvan, a grocery-shipping firm that was one of the highest-profile failures of the dot-com boom over a decade ago. Webvan raised over $400 million in funding before collapsing in 2001.

Having witnessed the need for rapid order fulfillment, Mr. Mountz started Kiva along with Peter Wurman, who had been an associate professor of computer science at North Carolina State, and Raffaello D'Andrea, a professor of engineering at ETH Zurich. 

With Kiva, Amazon is now looking at a more automated approach. The robots are already used by two websites that Amazon has acquired: shoe-retailer Zappos.com and baby-products site Diapers.com.

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