Arvato has once again expanded its network in the U.S. with a new warehouse with approximately 970,000 square feet of space in the greater Louisville, Kentucky area. In this new state of the art site, the internationally active supply chain and e-commerce service provider is handling the entire logistics and fulfillment for two customers from the Tech industry. In addition to services such as warehousing and distribution to end customers and retail partners, this also includes transport management and extensive value-added services. With the new location, Arvato has expanded its campus in the centrally located logistics hub and now operates four distribution centers with more than 2.4 million square feet in the Louisville area.
"We are very pleased that our campus on the U.S. East Coast continues to grow," says Mitat Aydindag, President of North America at Arvato. "This is because Louisville is a key location for our operations in the United States. It is conveniently located geographically, has excellent infrastructure, and is connected to both a global freight hub and a high-capacity highway system for shipping by air or land. Louisville perfectly complements our West Coast locations allowing us to fully cover the U.S. footprint with our services. I am proud of the hard work and dedication of the team. Their expertise and commitment have been invaluable to the success of this project."
The new warehouse in neighboring Shepherdsville creates more than 300 new jobs in the region and purchases green electricity for 100% of its consumption. To optimize logistics processes, the state-of-the-art facility has been equipped with various automation solutions such as a 1.4-mile-long conveyor belt with a sorting system, as well as automatic pallet wrappers and high-speed automatic carton erectors and sealers. The automatic carton packaging system is capable of creating custom boxes from fanfold-fed corrugated cardboard and creates perfect-sized boxes for e-commerce orders which eliminates the need of dunnage material.
Another highlight is an innovative robotic label applicator that automates the printing and application of multiple labels. It is designed for different carton sizes and thus offers maximum flexibility. The label applicator independently detects the size of the carton, prints all the necessary labels and applies them to the packaging using a flexible robot arm. Each of the eight devices used can apply up to 1,200 labels per hour. Furthermore, Arvato will implement Stretch® robots from Boston Dynamics for unloading floor-loaded trucks and containers. This will significantly speed up the unloading process to move goods through the warehouse faster and meet customer demands more efficiently.
"Automation, in combination with manual solutions, enables the greatest possible flexibility and individual adaptation to the needs of our customers in the Tech industry," explains Michael Konopka, Vice President of Account Management at Arvato. "At the same time, it is also an important step in Arvato's automation strategy, which has already been successfully implemented at several locations worldwide."
Arvato wants to continue writing the growth story. The campus, which now employs 1,200 people at peak, will continue to grow in the future in order to achieve economies of scale and take advantage of synergy effects.
Arvato's strategic goal is to continuously expand its range of e-commerce and supply chain services in the United States. This requires a steady expansion of the U.S. logistics network. The supply chain and e-commerce service provider already operate nine locations in the U.S., namely in Ontario (CA), Valencia (CA), Las Vegas (NV), Pleasant Prairie (WI), Louisville (KY) and Memphis (TN), where comprehensive logistics services are provided for customers in the Consumer Products, Tech and Healthcare industries.
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