Amazon is on a mission to optimize warehouse work. Its latest test puts wearable devices on support staff.

Amazon thinks one of its biggest warehouse efficiency opportunities lies in jobs that generate little operational data.

A new wearable-device system could change that.

Internal documents reviewed by Business Insider show Amazon is testing a new program called Right Station Link that uses a wearable device to automatically capture check-in and labor-hours data for “indirect” support roles, such as equipment maintenance, safety coordination, and floor management, that have historically been harder to track.

Unlike warehouse workers at packing stations, employees in indirect roles frequently move between assignments throughout a shift.

Amazon expects the new devices to “improve labor tracking accuracy” and “reduce non-productive labor hours,” one of the documents stated.

According to one of the internal documents from March, these indirect roles account for roughly $2.8 billion worth of labor spending, or 85 million labor hours.

At the time of the analysis, conducted last year, many of those roles lacked the “digital signals” needed to automatically confirm worker presence. “Right Station Link brings automated labor hour measurement to $2.8B of manually tracked labor spend in one deployment, enabling labor automation for all sortation roles,” one of the documents stated.

The initiative is part of Amazon’s next warehouse efficiency push.

The company spent years streamlining how packages move.

Now it’s applying the same playbook to people, betting that smarter worker assignments and better labor monitoring can unlock millions of dollars in savings.

Internal documents show Amazon initially planned to rely on Zebra WS501 wearable scanners.

Workers usually wear this scanner on the back of their hand.

They get assignments and break notifications through the device, while missed check-ins automatically send alerts to managers, according to the documents.

Before Right Station Link, check-in and assignment data for many indirect roles was not automatically captured by Amazon.

Managers instead documented station changes “manually on a digital platform,” according to an Amazon spokesperson.

The internal documents show Amazon became concerned that some managers were assigning more workers to indirect roles than staffing models recommended and were relying on manual time edits that made labor allocation harder to track consistently.

Amazon later eliminated manual time editing and required labor hours to be coded through its internal staffing system, which internal analysis suggested improved productivity.

Right Station Link is intended to help indirect workers “adhere to staffing assignments,” while reducing “idle time,” one document stated.

The Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider that during a pilot test, some managers were more cautious around their staffing needs to ensure they had enough employees to process volume, and they were not trying to “game the system.” Amazon wants to expand Right Station Link to all North American warehouses before the holiday peak season, according to one of the documents.

However, company leaders warned that Zebra device delivery delays could create “significant risk” to deployment timelines and reduce expected financial benefits, the internal documents show.

To address that, Amazon is making its software compatible with other devices and plans to use existing scanners already deployed throughout its facilities.

The company spokesperson said Right Station Link is not dependent on any specific hardware model and expansion plans may change.

It’s been testing hand-held devices as well as wearables, although employees prefer wearables, according to the spokesperson. “Right Station Link is being piloted at a small number of sites, and any potential future expansion plans are entirely speculative,” Amazon said. “As we test, we’re being deliberate about where this technology makes sense, and where it doesn’t.” The company said the system does not measure individual productivity or track workers’ real-time movements.

Before publication, the spokesperson told Business Insider that the premise of this story was “inaccurate” because it drew overly broad conclusions from incomplete data.

This spokesperson described Right Station Link as a tool that lets employees check into stations and receive assignment updates, calling it a “natural extension” of existing workforce-management processes.

The $2.8 billion figure does not represent “excess or waste” spending, but a “theoretical modeled opportunity” of a specific category of data that had not yet been integrated into Amazon’s staffing platform at the time of the analysis, the spokesperson added. “Right Station wasn’t developed to solve ‘visibility’ issues in our network — its intent is to streamline one element of our staffing processes through improving on our existing systems,” the spokesperson said. “As is industry standard, we digitally track employee hours to ensure we’re appropriately staffing our facilities to safely deliver on our customer promises.” Indirect roles have been difficult for warehouse operators to measure.

Unlike pickers or packers, whose productivity can be tracked through units processed, support functions such as maintenance and training are harder to quantify, according to Steve Tracey, a supply chain management professor at Penn State University.

As a result, companies often rely on labor tracking and outcome-based metrics, such as equipment uptime and safety performance, to evaluate those roles, he said.

The Amazon spokesperson disputed suggestions that the company had difficulty capturing this data, saying the information already exists in its systems.

Right Station Link simply gives employees a device for receiving assignments and sending updates throughout the day, the spokesperson added, comparing it to a hotel maintenance worker using a handheld device to receive service requests and notify management when work begins.

Contact this reporter via email at ekim@businessinsider.com or Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 650-942-3061.

Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.

Advertisement