Walmart announces four next generation fulfillment centers

Walmart is rolling out four new next generation e-commerce fulfillment centers with a combination of people, robotics and machine learning to set a new precedent for speed of fulfillment.

The four fulfillment centers could provide 75% of the U.S. with next- or two-day shipping on millions of items, including marketplace items shipped by Walmart Fulfillment Services. Combined with traditional fulfillment centers, Walmart will reach 95% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping.
Today Walmart uses 31 dedicated eCommerce fulfillment centers and 4,700 stores located within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population to fulfill online orders.

“I’m thrilled to announce we’re building four next generation fulfillment centers (FCs) over the next three years, with the first opening this summer in Joliet, Illinois,” says David Guggina, senior vice president of innovation and automation, Walmart U.S. These four facilities will also collectively employ more than 4,000 associates while introducing brand new tech-focused jobs like control technicians, quality audit analysts and flow managers.

Guggina says WalMart’s priority was to strategically locate the four fulfillment centers to pair most effectively with the company’s 4,700 stores and 210 distribution centers. Beyond the Joliet center that will open this summer, the other three are in McCordsville, IN (opening spring 2023), Lancaster, TX (fall 2023) and Greencastle, PA (2024).

Walmart partnered with Knapp to develop an automated, high-density storage system that streamlines a manual, twelve-step process into just five steps. In addition, the system doubles storage capacity and can handle double the number of orders daily.
“We’ve been perfecting this system in our fulfillment center in Pedricktown, New Jersey,” says Guggina.

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