Walmart opens its biggest fulfillment center yet

Walmart on Thursday opened its largest fulfillment center ever, a 2.2 million square-foot facility in McCordsville, Indiana, about 20 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

The new fulfillment center is the second of four so-called “next-generation facilities” from the retail giant that blend technology, machine learning and human workers to drive faster shipping and delivery of Walmart.com orders. The centers have shaved the formerly 12-step fulfillment process down to five steps.

The McCordsville facility, which local reports said cost more than $600 million to build, is designed to serve next- and two-day shipping orders.

Walmart hailed the opening as a “major milestone in our supply chain modernization journey.”

“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,” Karisa Sprague, Walmart’s SVP of Fulfillment Network Operations, said in a statement.

Walmart debuted its next-generation fulfillment center plans about a year ago, and opened the first in Joliet, Illinois, last September. Future facilities are slated for Pennsylvania and Texas. The Indiana fulfillment center is about twice as big as the one in Joliet.

The facilities are able to streamline the fulfillment process through a partnership with Knapp, a technology company focused on intelligent fulfillment solutions that developed a high-density storage system.

Walmart has said that the four fulfillment centers, slated to be online in the next couple of years, could provide 75% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping, without factoring in any other Walmart infrastructure. Combined with the rest of Walmart’s delivery network, Walmart will be able to reach 95% of U.S. residents.

The McCordsville fulfillment center will hire more than 1,000 workers, the retailer said.

Walmart announced its selection of McCordsville for the massive fulfillment center about a year ago, saying it chose the city because of its proximity to large metro areas and attractive pipeline of talent. McCordsville has grown 688% since 2020 and permits for single-family homes almost doubled, Walmart said, citing city data.

“We continue to modernize our supply chain network and prepare for growth in our digital business,” Sprague said last year. “This new facility will play an integral role in helping us serve even more customers and Walmart members with access to fast shipping on millions of items.”