Inside A Netflix Shipping Center
HackingNetflix was invited to tour a Netflix shipping center where 50 employees process as many as 90,000 discs a day. Pretty cool.
HackingNetflix says:
Each envelope is ripped open by hand, and the DVDs are inspected for cracks. If you look closely at the photo you can see the Blockbuster Online discs that were delivered to Netflix by mistake.
Hacking a Netflix Shipping Center [HackingNetflix]
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Oh, so that's netflix's secret strategy. Steal blockbuster online disc.
@BustangBetty: it is, largely, but you need humans to make sure the discs are still usable and to do some initial work.
How do Blockbuster discs accidentally get shipped to Netflix? I was under the impression that USPS stopped sorting the discs by machine, and did it manually. If they do it manually, wouldn't someone notice that the disc packaging is blue and says Blockbuster?
@pecan 3.14159265: Huh. I heard they redesigned their envelopes to stop jamming the machine so they could go back to regular service instead of shelling out millions to the USPS for having to do manual work.
I'm surprised if they haven't done something ala Gamefly. You get a little cardboard sleeve to put the disc, in it's own paper sleeve, then put the whole thing in a envelope.
Can I tell you how much I love Netflix. We are temporarily living in Canada & I was sooo bummed to have to cancel my Netflix account since Netflix does not work in Canada because of licensing issues. One of the first things on my list when we move back to California is renewing our account. Cannot wait!
I love me a good assembly line workflow. For some reason, the obsessive compulsive geek inside me gets all fantasizy about a well designed well ordered assembly line.
@ClutchDude: They may have done so. The by hand part is more the receiving than the mailing process, so they can check the disks before they go out again.
They must not look close enough. In the last 6 months I've received about 5-10 disks that had a crack and most were glued back together! The disk isn't going to work even if it's glued together. :-)
@Megalomania: That and you prettymuch need a human to sort mislabelled disks - or atleast it is much easier that way. A machine that scans the cover, and then reads the metadata on the disk is just too cumbersome and slow.
Also there is the case of customer notes, and customers losing a sleeve and sending in two disks in the sleeve. Thats just too many variables.
So it is usually much simpler to have humans interact with humans and sort things out so that simpler machines can do the work faster.
@MostlyHarmless: i do a decent amount of shipping/buying online and have personally always had better luck with ups.
Thats just my personal experience though, and i still use usps for a lot of shipping because they tend to be cheaper for certain things like media mail
A lot of it is automated. It appears only the opening and cleaning of the discs is done by hand. My friend used to work at one. He hated it. Very mundane work. He also said he was not allowed to have any sort of drink at his desk, no music headphones or otherwise, and you are not allowed to talk at all. Like a sweat shop.
I guess this shows that they always wear those cute lil Netflix Tshirts all the time... Or maybe they knew that they were coming to take pictures again..
"PICTURE DAY TOMORROW, WEAR RED SHIRT. OR ELSE."
@MostlyHarmless: I've actually noticed an increasing number of my Netflix DVDs coming with a barcode sticker around the hole on the inside of the disc. They may be moving toward an automated solution using that rather than reading the optical disc itself.
@formatc: Why didnt I think of that. That would actually be a good solution.
Cleaning and inspecting would still be an issue though.
The bar code would come in handy when you have to print a new sleeve.
@pecan 3.14159265: I work in a printing company with a rather large mail operation, and we frequently get "empty" mail trays from the post office with other companies' outbound mail still stuck inside, ranging from bills to solicitations to advertisements that were never delivered. This could be a similar issue within the post office sorting bins.
@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: I look good in red. Clearly I need to get a job at Netflix. Or Target.
@Max Sando: I've done similar assembly line work before. The no distraction, no talking policy seems to be the norm for this sort of job.
It makes for a very, very, VERY long day. The first day on the job I worked for a while and I honest to God thought it was lunchtime, but it was only 8:25 (25 minutes into the day). I thought I was going to cry.
deja vu!?
@calquist: Sorry, I just got crazy confused. Carry on and another tally on the board for an edit button.
@formatc: Disclosure: don't use blockbuster online.
Is it possible that the disks, in thier bb sleeve could have been placed in netflicks envelopes?
don't know if there are size differences in sleeves or anything like that.
@pecan 3.14159265:
When the netflix discs get returned, they generally get pulled out of the mail stream and put into a tray before they get sorted on a machine. This tray is then given to Netflix when they by and drop off their next shipment of discs to go out.
@Laura Northrup: I like myself in red as well, but I prefer blue. Looks like it's Best Buy for me.
I think they wear red at Office Depot as well. My husband has to wear a red shirt at the little sheet music store he works at.. I think red is a popular business color.. atleast in the retail world.
@redskull: When I was temping, I worked in a place that made scented bath salts and other things like that and for eight hours a day. Luckily, we were allowed to talk, and often had really great discussions as we scooped scented Epsom salts into little plastic bags and packed the little plastic bags inside big plastic bags, and stuck labels on little bottles of lotion.
I would have turned down those assignments after one day, but I liked it there so much I told them if the place called again to call me. :)
Also, my jeans smelled really good at the end of the day.
I'm sure it was kosher kidney...haha
wow... this article is just so oddly fascinating.... almost makes me want to hear that sorter machine whizzing along at 30,000 sorts an hour
@Max Sando: I worked maintenance at a manufacturing plant once, and got put on light duty for a week due to an injury. I helped out doing quality control for a part they made, which was a little metal clip. I had to visually inspect it and make sure it was completely coated with paint, no bare metal, and then fit the little clip over a metal piece to ensure that the paint hadn't fouled the clip itself. I'd then flip the metal piece over to double check the paint job, toss it into a bucket and repeat. I got into a rhythm with it: spot, clip, flip, flick.
I expected it to be drudgery, but the rhythm actually became very meditative. It was so absorbing that I'd get there and sit down at my little table, and after what seemed like ten minutes or so, it'd be lunchtime. Best week I ever spent there.
@RecordStoreToughGuy: I'd imagine Netflix is region-locked to US servers. You could try routing through a US Proxy, but that would probably kill the bandwidth unless you have a really nice friend with an unused server.
@andi_bird: My Vancouver friend uses Zip.ca and loves it. I don't think it has quite as many titles but so far he's had no complaints.
@Kimaroo - 20% More Kitty Added!: Actually the story has a commenter (a former worker) indicate that while they are given the shirts they don't have to wear 'em.
What? This has not been outsourced to China yet? Where are the illegal aliens? Why isn't this a dark and non-air-conditioned warehouse?
DOWn, baby, DOWn!
Probably because you could say goodbye to the single-day turnarounds. It just wouldn't be the same if you had to wait two weeks between movies. It would be too much like subscribing to Gamefly.
Haven't we seen this one already?
I always thought this process was automated, guess I was wrong.