Walmart opens second next-gen fulfillment center

Walmart’s largest fulfillment center to date is also its latest high-tech facility.

The discount giant is opening the 2.2-million-sq.-ft.distribution hub 20 miles northeast of Indianapolis, in McCordsville, Ind. This next generation facility is Walmart’s largest fulfillment center to date, and retailer intends to be able to fulfill more orders, more quickly as a result.

The McCordsville fulfillment center is the second of four next generation facilities the retailer plans to open, in an effort to achieve faster shipping and delivery while increasing its online order fulfillment capacity.

The space is designed to expand access to the retailer’s next- or two-day shipping. Walmart Fulfillment Services, Walmart’s end-to-end third-party fulfillment service, will also leverage the space to fulfill Marketplace items.

The McCordsville fulfillment center will employ more than 1,000 associates. The retailer is currently hiring for a variety of positions, including tech-focused jobs.

Walmart’s next gen fulfillment center model – a closer look

Walmart is opening a total of four state-of-the-art fulfillment centers dedicated to e-commerce during the next three years. The first location opened in summer 2022 in Joliet, Ill., servicing customers across Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.  Along with McCordsville, the other facilities will open in Lancaster, Tex. and Greencastle, Penn.. When fully open, the four facilities will collectively employ more than 4,000 associates. 

The new, high-tech centers feature an automated, high-density storage system that, among other benefits, allow the retail giant to double the number of customer orders it can fulfill in a day.

The system, developed in partnership with intelligent automation technology provider Knapp, streamlines a formerly manual, 12-step fulfillment process into the following five steps:

• Unload: Sellers and suppliers send merchandise in cases to a fulfillment center. As the cases arrive, associates unload the trailers and place cases onto a conveyor belt where they’re routed to receiving.
• Receive: At receiving, an associate breaks the case apart and places the individual items into a tote. The tote is fed into a massive, automated storage system where a shuttle transports it to one of millions of designated locations. The storage system is designed to account for every square-inch, spanning from floor to ceiling in a custom-built structure designed to hold the inventory.
• Pick: When a customer places an online order, the system goes into action, retrieving their items and shuttling the needed totes to an associate at a picking station. According to Walmart, previously associates would have walked up to nine miles per day, picking items from multiple floors of shelving spread out over hundreds of thousands of square feet of space.
• Pack: Simultaneously, a custom box is created to fit the exact measurements of the order. In the pack area, Walmart estimates associates can assemble up to four orders at once and send packages to be shipped in less than 30 minutes after the customer clicks to order.
• Ship: The completed order is then automatically taped, labeled, and routed to its designated zone, where it’s then shipped to its final destination.

According to Walmart, the benefits of the new system include more comfort for associates, double the storage capacity, and double the number of customer orders it can fulfill in a day. The retailer is strategically locating these four fulfillment centers to pair most effectively with its 4,700 stores and 210 distribution centers to get orders to customers fast and efficiently.

Walmart says these four centers alone could provide 75% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping on millions of items, including third-party seller Marketplace items shipped by Walmart Fulfillment Services. Combined with its traditional fulfillment centers, the retailer says it will be able to reach 95% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping, and can also offer same-day delivery to 80% of the U.S. population using its stores.

“The McCordsville grand opening marks a major milestone in our supply chain modernization journey,” said Karisa Sprague, senior VP, fulfillment network operations for Walmart U.S. “With more customers shopping online, we’re leverage state-of-the-art technology to increase speed of delivery all while creating tech-empowered career opportunities for our associates.”

Headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart Inc. operates more than 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites in 20 countries.