There is a five-story building off Route 114 in North Andover that thousands of us drive past without a second thought. It is Amazon’s robotic fulfillment center, and during this year’s Prime week, the Eagle-Tribune reported, it was testing a new machine that reads like science fiction.
They call it a SLAM, short for scan, label, address, and manifest. It labels up to 4,000 packages an hour on its own. Moving everything to it is a fleet of newer robots that use AI to navigate, sliding pods of product across the floor and glowing green as they go. A manager walked a reporter through miles of conveyor and a machine that folds flat cardboard into whatever box size the order needs. The photos from inside genuinely look like a movie set.
It is easy to file this under “neat gadget” and move on, but it is bigger than that locally. This is one of the larger employers in the valley, and a real piece of the North Andover tax base. Automation like this is the quiet tension of the moment: it makes the operation faster and cheaper to run, and it also changes what the jobs inside look like. Either way, a facility this size is not going anywhere, and steady, large employers are part of what keeps housing demand in the surrounding towns as durable as it is.
Mostly, though, it is just a strange and interesting thing happening right here, in a building you have passed a hundred times. Worth knowing what is behind those walls.
Curious how the job centers around here shape the towns nearby, or what your own place is worth in this market? I cover the Merrimack Valley and I am happy to give you a straight answer, no pressure.
