UPS has officially opened an 893,000 square foot (82,962 sqm) ‘super-hub’ near Indianapolis after an investment of $260 million to handle rapidly growing volumes in the Ohio Valley region of the USA.
The package sortation and distribution centre at Plainfield initially started processing packages in 2017 during the busy holiday season while construction of the new “super hub” was still underway and is now operating at full capacity. More than 575 new full- and part-time jobs will be created at the site by 2023.
“Our business is growing in Indiana and the surrounding states. The new regional super hub in Plainfield sorts packages faster and more accurately by bringing together highly-automated operations, advanced technology, and dedicated employees. Our customers can have confidence that they will continue to receive the reliability and performance that they have come to expect from UPS,” said Joe Boyle, president of UPS’s Ohio Valley District which includes Indiana, Kentucky and southern Ohio.
Home to growing biotechnology, life sciences and health care sectors, Indianapolis area businesses benefit from enhanced delivery speed, accuracy and service reliability from the new regional super hub’s data-driven package scanning and sortation equipment, UPS explained.
Healthcare and life science logistics are strategic growth imperatives for the company. As demands grow for more patient control and convenience, it will be increasingly important for care providers and logisticians to have supply chains that deliver critical pharmaceuticals, devices and supplies to medical facilities and patients when and where they need them.
The advanced operations technology integrated into the new regional super hub also helps power the UPS® Ground on Saturday delivery and pickup services that included the Indianapolis area as an early market for its launch and rollout in 2017.
Known as the Crossroads of America, Indiana’s roads connect the state to 82 million people within a 500-mile radius of the state’s borders. Its international transportation network includes10 major airports and three maritime ports, which are each Foreign Trade Zones.
UPS employs more than 9,800 people across the state in package delivery operations, air operations, ground freight, healthcare logistics and contract logistics.
UPS pointed out that “Super hubs” like the new Indianapolis area regional hub have a significantly higher package processing capacity than most other package operations facilities, increasing the speed and flexibility of packages moving through UPS’s global smart logistics network.
Similar facilities have opened in Atlanta, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City, Utah as part of a multi-year strategic capital investment plan that also includes acquisition of new aircraft and ground fleet vehicles. This year, the company is adding more than 350,000 pieces per hour of additional sortation capacity in the United States before the 2019 holiday season.
