Being in the center of it all really makes a difference in the North American express e-commerce business. That’s the main reason UPS chose to add nearly 400,000 square feet of package processing space at two facilities in Kansas, located in the geographic center of the United States.
Already, a US$220 million, 200,000-square foot expansion is underway at the UPS hub in Lenexa, Kansas, adding more than 42 percent more processing capacity. Upon completion in 2020, the facility will total about 430,000 square feet.
A second facility about 25 miles south, in the town of Edgerton, will add another 197,000 square feet this fall. The Edgerton facility will include a UPS Customer Center and will dispatch regional delivery trucks. The location is also near intermodal rail operations, linking road and rail for long-distance UPS Ground package transit.
Fern Shaw, president of UPS’s Central Plains District, said that the technology that UPS was deploying at the Lexana facility, located at the center of the UPS network, would “expand what we offer businesses and consumers who are benefiting from e-commerce growth.”
The aforementioned technology includes advanced package scanning and sortation equipment, which UPS said will, “allow dynamic changes to route volume through the building and provide flexibility to adjust to different loading patterns prompted by weather conditions or volume surges.”