The Central Virginia chapter of CSCMP arranged for a tour last week of Walmart’s Petersburg Distribution Center. We had 40 folks from various industries including trucking, commercial real estate, manufacturing, distribution and service related industries. Walmart’s General Manager for the facility, Marc Swienton, opened the evening with a presentation on the DC which included its size (1,000,000 sq. ft.), its capacity (1,500,000 cases a night), its FTE count (750) and how long they’ve been there (20 years).
We then toured a few parts of the facility. The DC was very well organized, clean and busy. We looked at the bulk locations, pick modules, sortation, conveyor merge section, shipping and receiving. Marc had some of his managers walk with us to answer questions and we found that Walmart measures just about everything to make sure that they are getting the right products out the door to the stores to replenish merchandise that’s been sold.
All in all, an outstanding, educational tour with plenty of opportunity for networking.