FEDEX OPENS NEW DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Site addresses high e-commerce demand
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
With yet another holiday shipping season on the horizon, FedEx Ground on Wednesday showed off its new 300,000square-foot automated distribution center in Butler County to improve its package delivery business in the Pittsburgh region.
During a rare downtime at the facility, the Moon-based ground delivery giant gave dozens of visitors — local elected officials, business leaders, customers and members of the media — their first look at how the immense operation works.
The facility, which officially opened in August in Jackson just across Interstate 79 from where United Parcel Service operates a distribution hub, has the capacity to process 15,000 packages an hour and employs about 400 workers.
Michael Murphy, assistant senior manager for FedEx Ground, showed how packages arrive through up to 28 loading docks, move through a network of conveyor belts and zip through a sixsided “scanning tunnel” that tracks package dimensions and makes sorting decisions in half a second. A central control room, filled with camera shots of every sort location and trailers coming in, monitors the movement of packages.
“With buildings like this, you can see how fast we get stuff done,” Mr. Murphy said.
The hub helps address demand the company is feeling from Harrisburg to the east and from Columbus, Ohio, to the west, Mr. Murphy said. Demand is also driven by growth in online shopping, which has caused the volume of packages FedEx Ground handles across its network to more than double in the last decade.
“E-commerce brings with it increasing consumer expectations and demands, including the ability to order practically anything from anywhere at any time,” said Henry J. Maier, president and CEO of FedEx Ground, in prepared remarks before the tour.
FedEx Ground employs about 3,000 workers in the region between its corporate headquarters in Moon and distribution facilities in Clinton, Greensburg and Neville Island.
The company moved part of its Neville Island operations, including 139 positions, to the new facility.