Walmart has opened its largest fulfillment center to date.
The retailer on Thursday celebrated the opening of a new 2.2 million square-foot space, which is located at 5259 W 500 N. in McCordsville, Ind.
The new center is one of the four “next generation” fulfillment centers that Walmart last June committed to opening over the next three years. These centers feature high-tech adjustments including robotics and machine learning and are meant to be strategically placed in locations that complement Walmart’s 4,700 stores and 210 distribution centers. The first of these centers opened last September in Joliet, Illinois.
The new Indiana center will help support Walmart’s next-day and two-day shipping capabilities and will offer jobs to more than 1,000 Walmart employees, including in tech-focused roles. Almost half of the new employees at the new center transferred from the company’s Plainfield center, which Walmart closed after a fire in March 2022.
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Walmart said it employs over 43,000 people and operates 127 retail stores in Indiana. The retailer donated $5,000 to two local organizations to celebrate the new center’s opening.
“The McCordsville grand opening marks a major milestone in our supply chain modernization journey,” said Karisa Sprague, SVP of fulfillment network operations for Walmart U.S. “With more customers shopping online, we’re leveraging state-of-the-art technology to increase speed of delivery all while creating tech empowered career opportunities for our associates.”
The opening comes after Walmart this year let go hundreds of employees in centers located in New Jersey, Texas, California, Florida and Pennsylvania, reportedly due to a reduction in evening and weekend shifts. In a statement, Walmart confirmed it had “adjusted staffing levels” at fulfillment centers in certain markets to “better prepare for the future needs of customers.”
And in October, Walmart filed a notice that it would lay off over 1,000 workers at an Atlanta fulfillment center, which it would convert to support its WFS (Walmart Fulfillment Services) business.
In addition to the four new high-tech fulfillment centers, Walmart last month opened its first high-tech market fulfillment center in Arkansas, expanding the use of its stores as fulfillment centers. The new center is built within a Walmart store and is powered by a proprietary storage and retrieval system named Alphabot.
In October, Walmart announced its acquisition of Alert Innovation, a robotics company meant to help automate the order fulfillment process. Walmart said it will use this technology across its 4,700 stores to help fulfill orders more quickly.
