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.

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.

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. Read more