How IT Helps - Behind the Scenes at Netflix

Behind the scenes at Netflix

A selection of photos from http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/08/23/netflix/

(Accessed Oct. 5, 2009)

How IT Helps

In an unmarked warehouse in Northborough, Mass., about 50 employees of the DVD rental giant Netflix sort

through and repackage more than 60,000 discs every day.

The barcode on each disc tracks every step the DVD makes between customers.

Employees scan a barcode on each disc to determine where the disc has been and which

customer it should be shipped to next.

After the discs are returned, they are stuffed into new, red mailing envelopes for the next customer. This warehouse

has sorting machines that can stuff more than 3,000 DVDs per hour.

DVDs ready for their next customer are taken by unmarked trucks from Northborough to a U.S. Postal Service drop

center in Worcester. The company says most will make it to their destinations by the next day.

Massachusetts Netflix customers get an email when their movie is received in Northborough, and another when a new title has been

shipped out. Netflix says it owns several hundred copies of the least-rented title in its catalogue, and tens of thousands of copies of a recent

release like ``The Departed.''