The construction and utilization of e-commerce distribution centers is a critical aspect of company success in the age of online retail.
Distribution centers once served primarily as storage facilities for retailers. They accumulated products in their distribution centers and then sent them on to their stores as needed.
But times have changed.
The modern distribution center must be much more optimized to be able to fulfill the non-stop flow of online orders and satisfy customer demands for 24-hour delivery. With this in mind, several trends have developed in the DC landscape:
- Smaller facilities are being built closer to population centers to help reduce the cost of last-mile delivery, and make it easier to process returns and exchanges.
- While shrinking in total square footage, DCs are actually getting taller to allow for more racks and better utilize vertical space.
- They are also being constructed with larger loading docks and deeper truck courts to help prevent congestion from the non-stop flow of delivery trucks and third-party couriers.
- And modern DCs must be able to perform these functions — among others — while being as affordable and energy efficient as possible.
To help satisfy the demand for more and more DC space, companies are increasingly leveraging metal buildings. In addition to being extremely durable and energy efficient, they can be prefabricated off site to reduce the cost of construction and the time it takes to become operational.
Companies can begin fulfilling orders mere months after getting approval for the new DC. Steel buildings can also offer more clear span than other building types, allowing the business to take advantage of every possible inch of available space and promote movement throughout the facility.
Although these are a few of the most prevalent trends in contemporary DC design, they far from tell the whole story of how scientific the process has become.
Read an infographic by Allied Steel Buildings for a detailed analysis of the anatomy of a highly optimized e-commerce DC.
