Walmart is establishing four new "next generation" fulfillment centers.- The first one will open this summer in Joliet, Illinois.
Walmart is slated to unveil four "next generation" fulfillment centers, with the first opening this summer in Joliet, Illinois.
In a blog post, David Guggina, Walmart's senior vice president of automation and innovation, wrote that the "FCs will be the first of their kind for Walmart, using the powerful combination of people, robotics, and machine learning to set an entirely new precedent for us on the speed of fulfillment while continuing to create a positive work environment for our associates."
The new fulfillment centers will employ over 4,000 workers, including "brand new tech-focused" employees "like control technicians, quality audit analysts and flow managers."
Walmart has 31 established e-commerce fulfillment centers. The new fulfillment centers will feature technology from intelligent-fulfillment firm Knapp. Knapp utilizes robotics and artificial intelligence in a logistical setting. Guggina wrote that the company is employing only four new fulfillment centers because it believes the new additions "alone could provide 75% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping on millions of items." The retailer has not disclosed the remaining three locations.
These fulfillment centers will employ a patent-pending process for receiving and unloading cases of merchandise from sellers and suppliers. Once the cases are opened, workers will fill totes with individual items. A shuttle transports the totes to a massive, automated storage system, where they're placed in one of millions of designated locations.
The process is highly automated compared with the operations of Walmart's current fulfillment centers. These new centers are also designed to maximize use of the fulfillment-center space for more storage. Whenever a customer purchases an individual item, the system will set about "retrieving their items and shuttling the needed totes to an associate at a picking station." Workers will pack the orders into boxes, and then set them up for shipping.
Walmart has long touted its massive footprint as a boon to its online fulfillment strategy. But the new slate of fulfillment centers could also be seen as an answer to