Berkshire Hathaway’s Mouser Electronics recently broke ground on a 416,000-square-foot, three-story building that will expand its distribution center, located south of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.
“With a larger warehouse space and continuing investment into automation and staffing, Mouser is preparing for the future while ensuring the highest levels of customer service today,” says Pete Shopp, Mouser Electronics’ Senior Vice President of Business Operations. “The tools and systems we’ve put in place offer another way we can help shorten our customers’ time to market.”
Upon completion of the new construction, Mouser’s 78-acre global headquarters and massive distribution center will consist of almost 1.5 million square feet to accommodate Mouser’s vast inventory of 1 million unique SKUs for products and technologies from over 1,200 electronic component manufacturers. The new building will feature a triple-mezzanine floorplan, advanced automation, and a skybridge connector to the existing distribution center building. Altogether, the new addition will solidify Mouser’s place as having some of the most advanced receiving, order pulling, and shipping departments in e-commerce.
In spring 2022, Mouser completed installation of 120 vertical lift modules (VLMs), the largest VLM installation in the world. VLMs are essentially giant vertical filing cabinets, complete with shelves and an automated extractor to bring the components to the employee’s workstation. This increases efficiency and floor space and can reduce an employee’s walking time by 45% or more.
In addition to the massive VLM installation, Mouser’s distribution center features multiple Ultipack and I-Pack machines — a sophisticated automated system for sealing and labeling shipments that can process up to 14 orders per minute — as well as an OPEX Perfect Pick system for consolidation and an AutoStore system.
Though the adoption of start-of-the-art automation acts primarily as a means of boosting efficiency, productivity, accuracy and speed, the systems also enable more sustainable operations and improved customer satisfaction.
© 2022 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell a stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.