Module 5 Discussion Post Assignment:

Watch this video (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-lBvI6u_h about Amazon's fulfillment and shipping process. From your careful viewing of the video, as well as your own knowledge of the company, think about technology and controls that you have read about in Chapters 8, 9 and 10 of your Gelinas et al. text.

• Based on what you observed in the video, identify and discuss three separate controls that you noted occurring during fulfillment and/or shipping at Amazon, including what these controls help Amazon accomplish. They do not have to be something you read about in the text; however, use the text to help raise your awareness of activities that are performed as more of a control than a means to simply get goods into a truck, so to speak.
• For each of the various controls you identified above, determine whether and explain why you think it is a pervasive (including "general") control (Chapter 8) or a business process or sub-process (including "application") control (Chapter 9, 10, 11). Hint: this is a great chance to review the distinction between pervasive/general and business process/application controls as they are first described in Chapter 7, p. 257 and 258.
• Now watch the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAXdeqcHBp4 about the receiving function within an Amazon warehouse. Without worrying yet about specifics from future chapters or the purchase-to-pay business process at all, describe your general observations about the use of human assistance vs. robotic assistance in receiving and shipping and make general conclusions about the types of tasks in each area that are best suited for robots vs. humans. Does the receiving process look like an area that could ever "go fully robotic"? Why or why not?