IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 14

amazing. The moment you see the product, you say I get that product."
Back in the 1990s, Mountz joined grocery delivery service Webvan to figure
out what technology might work to fulfill packing grocery bags for customer
orders. According to Villeneuve, Webvan
had built a large fulfillment center at huge
expense, and they were blowing through
venture capital funds. Webvan had failed
to understand what it would cost to pick
an order and deliver it, and so, Villeneuve
says, Mountz had "the unenviable task of
having to go into the board and tell them
they were taping a $20 to every tote that
went out the door."
He only stayed a year, and shortly after,
Webvan became one of the larger dot-com
casualties. Mountz went on to work at
Apple, but the problem always bothered
him. Villeneuve recalls discussions with
Mountz where he would explain that there
had to be a way to remove the nonvalueadded activity, like walking miles through-

14

IEEE women in engineering magazine

out the day to the items on the shelves,
and keep them focused only on the valueadded part of their job-picking and packing customer orders.
It was the walking that had to go,
and Kiva's technology does just that.
Humans no longer trek across massive warehouses to find the diapers
and shoes-they leave that to Kiva's
orange robots. And the software engineers make sure the robots do their jobs
in the most efficient way possible. As
orders drop into a station, Villeneuve
says, "complicated algorithms determine
which is the optimal robot to pick up
the optimal shelving unit to bring to the
right station, where a stationary worker
then picks and packs the order."
Villeneuve, who knew nothing about
warehouse automation and fulfillment centers, needed time to decide to make this
"complete pivot" to a company whose market she knew so little about. "I was in a
place where I knew pretty much everything

DeCEMBER 2014	

about the company I was at," she says. "I
was ready to take the reins and run with it."
Yet, in the end, she knew the opportunity was too good to pass up. "It is an
absolutely brilliant solution and the company is this entrepreneurial, innovative
team of passionate people that are really
invested in the mission of revolutionizing the way material handling is done in
e-commerce," Villeneuve adds.
When she joined Kiva, it was a small
company with about US$35 million in revenue. By the end of 2010, they had grown
133%, and by the end of 2011, they were
profitable for the first time. In early 2012,
Amazon bought Kiva for US$775 million.

A Perfect Fit
Villeneuve has returned from a few weeks
of working in Amazon fulfillment centers,
and it is reminiscent of her first job at GM.
The fact that a hands-on approach is a big
part of the Amazon culture is a sign that
she and Amazon are a great fit. "Nothing



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014

IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - Cover1
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - Cover2
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 1
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 2
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 3
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 4
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 5
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 6
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 7
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 8
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 9
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 10
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 11
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 12
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 13
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 14
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 15
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 16
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 17
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 18
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 19
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 20
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 21
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 22
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 23
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 24
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 25
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 26
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 27
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 28
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 29
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 30
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 31
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 32
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 33
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 34
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 35
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 36
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 37
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 38
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 39
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 40
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 41
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 42
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 43
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 44
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 45
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 46
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 47
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 48
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 49
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 50
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 51
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 52
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 53
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 54
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 55
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - 56
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - Cover3
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2014 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2012
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2012
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2011
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2010
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2010
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2009
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2009
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2008
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2008
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2007
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com