Amazon Australia announces second robotics fulfilment centre, coming to Craigieburn, Melbourne
Amazon Australia today announced plans to open its second Amazon Robotics fulfilment centre (FC) at the AustralianSuper-owned Craigieburn Logistics Estate, in Craigieburn, northern Melbourne. Targeting completion in 2025, the new site will house up to 25 million of the smaller items that are sold on Amazon.com.au.
Amazon Australia’s investment in the site continues the company’s commitment to Australia, boosting employment opportunities and improving selection and delivery promises for customers around the country.
The fulfilment centre will span around 209,000 square metres across four levels – that’s equivalent to 11 Melbourne Cricket Grounds, or five times the size of Federation Square, making it the largest warehouse ever built in Australia (beating Amazon’s Western Sydney robotics site by 9,000 sqm).
The new fulfilment centre will be equipped with advanced Amazon Robotics technology to better assist employees, serve customers, and contribute to the company’s efforts to deliver a seamless experience for its Australian customers.
Robots will work collaboratively with employees by moving ‘pods’ of inventory to them, reducing the time and effort that would otherwise be required for the employee to stow items for sale or pick them up for new customer orders.
The construction of this second robotics site follows the successful launch of Amazon Australia’s first robotics site in Western Sydney in 2022, which doubled the company’s operational footprint.
It will create around 2,000 local jobs once fully operational, with the opportunity to work alongside advanced robotics. Excavation works have begun on the site which is being developed by LOGOS. It is expected the construction and fit-out of the state-of-the-art facility will create an additional 2,000 jobs in the area.
Once open, the site will offer a diverse range of job opportunities from part-time to full-time, in a high-tech, industry-leading workplace. Jobs will range from highly skilled roles like IT, HR and engineering, to entry-level roles with on-the-job training.
The majority of jobs will be permanent full-time roles, offering exciting career opportunities, competitive pay and benefits such as subsidised healthcare and up to 20 weeks paid parental leave.
AustralianSuper is the owner of the Craigieburn Logistics Estate which is managed and developed by LOGOS. Jason Peasley, Head of Mid Risk Portfolios, AustralianSuper said:
Excavation work has commenced on the site, which will be purpose-built to meet Amazon’s requirements – with the lease for the centre facilitated by CBRE’s Industrial & Logistics Occupier business.
Amazon.com.au launched in Australia in December 2017 and now offers customers more than 200 million products across 31 categories, with selection continuing to grow. In 2022, Amazon launched Prime Free One-Day Delivery on eligible items for Prime members in the majority of postcodes in Sydney and Melbourne, with no minimum spend required.
Amazon has empowered more than 14,000 Australian businesses, many of which are small and medium businesses, to reach customers around Australia and globally. Since 2011, Amazon has invested more than A$8.4 billion across all of its businesses in Australia.
Amazon now has a local team of more than 7,000 employees across amazon.com.au, Amazon Web Services, Kindle, Audible, Alexa and Prime Video.
The Melbourne Robotics fulfilment centre will be Amazon’s 6th operations site in Melbourne, supporting the company’s existing fulfilment and logistics network in Victoria which includes fulfilment centres in Dandenong South and Ravenhall, Amazon’s first Australian standalone sort centre and two Amazon Logistics sites.