Biography

Jon Battles is the Director of World Wide Engineering Advanced Technologies for Amazon.com Fulfillment Services. Jon is a ten-year veteran with Amazon having served in numerous Engineering Director roles. Jon has directed the North American Operations Engineering Organization consisting of Real Estate, Engineering, Packaging Engineering, Control Engineering, Facilities and Start Up teams with over 1,200 associates. He was appointed Corporate Integration Manager for the Kiva Robotics Systems acquisition and managed the design engineering applications for Amazon Fulfillment. In addition, he has overseen more than three billion dollars of capital investment and tens of millions of square feet of real estate expansion.

In his current role, Jon is leading Amazon’s Advanced Technology group responsible for developing their next generation of Fulfillment technologies. He is heavily involved in the development of the next generation of collaborative, human factor, mobile and picking robotics, as well as vision systems, autonomous vehicles and custom mechatronic systems. Jon has worked with a broad range of Robotic suppliers including, ABB, Fanuc, Kuku, Yaskawa, Amazon Robotics, Rethink, Adept, Seegrid, SWRI, Universal Robotics, Dematic, Intelligrated, Vanderlande, Pearson, Wynright, Bastian, Thiele, I Am and Fetch Robotics. He is also a member of the InMoov Human Factors 3D printed robotics organization.

Prior to joining Amazon, Jon served 25 years at Hallmark Cards Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri holding numerous positions in: Market Research, Product Development, Business Intelligence, Distribution Facility Manager, Industrial Engineering and Supply Chain Engineer Consultant. He was published in Material Handling Digest in 1993 for automating Hallmark’s distribution with RFID and Carousel systems. Jon solved a 25 year-old engineering challenge to automate Hallmark’s greeting card fulfillment by deploying mini loads, carousels, RF pick carts, advanced slotting and high speed item sortation to process 600,000 greeting card packages a day.

Jon is a recognized leader and innovator in the Material Handling Industry. He has subject matter expertise in high-speed sortation, robotics, fresh grocery, transportation sort centers, packaging, supply chain, warehouse and distribution design. Jon has designed over 150 facilities and contributed to twenty-eight patents and has been granted nine patents while at Amazon. These include the Amazon Fulfillment Engine, Automated Fulfillment Center and Modular FC Design used by Amazon to process over one million units a day from a single building. Jon is also a member of the Auburn University RFID Board and Robotic Industries association A3 Board of Directors.

Jon holds a BS in Business Management and Computer Science from Columbia College. He has also studied at the Georgia Tech Logistic Institute.