Multiple entry
Multiple exit
Spiral Merge
Continuous
Compact
1200-4500 items/hr
Kisling said Pure Fishing’s goods can be delivered anywhere
in the United States from its DC in three days or less. This is
critical for serving West Coast anglers, who make up a good
chunk of the company’s customer base, he said.
“We can take an order on Monday, ship it out on Tuesday,
and our West Coast customers can receive it on Friday in time
for the weekend,” Kisling said. “St. Louis is too far east” to consistently hit those delivery targets, he added.
MUNICIPAL SUPPORT
Logistics has also been embraced at the municipal level.
Perhaps the most striking example is in the western suburb of
Olathe, Kan., where over the past 40 years, residents have
helped finance—in conjunction with federal and state funding—the construction of four interchanges off I- 35. The first
three focused on retail and office development. The fourth,
and last, was dedicated to industrial development. It opened
three years ago.
Tim McKee, president of the Olathe Chamber of
Commerce, said the projects have yielded financial benefits far
in excess of their costs. “For each interchange that we have
built, we have seen private investment of more than $1 billion,” he said.
But perhaps the most ringing endorsement to date of
Kansas City’s increasing relevance on the logistics map can be
found in Edgerton, Kan., about 25 miles southwest of the city
off I- 35. There, workers are erecting an intermodal and distribution complex that will occupy more than 7 million square
feet and cost about $750 million, 80 percent of which will be
funded through private sources. An additional $100 million in
public money will be spent on infrastructure such as access
roads around the park.
The project, considered one of the most important development efforts in the history of Kansas, is expected to create
more than 13,000 direct and indirect jobs statewide, and generate about $1.7 billion in tax revenue over a 20-year period,
according to state estimates.
Anchoring the complex will be a $250 million intermodal
yard being built by BNSF Railway. The BNSF terminal, slated
to open in the fourth quarter of 2013, will replace a smaller
facility near the city and become a linchpin of the railroad’s
southern corridor connecting Chicago and the Southwest. At
full capacity, the facility will be able to handle 1. 5 million
intermodal “lifts” per year, compared with 313,621 lifts handled at the existing facility in 2011. A lift is defined as one trailer or container being placed on or taken off a railcar.
Ground was broken at the BNSF facility in mid-March, and
the project is expected to take about 22 months to complete. For
BNSF executives, the contrast between the progress at Edgerton
and an ongoing project in Southern California, which is in its
eighth year of development and remains mired in bureaucratic
and environmental red tape, could not be starker.
“We have to get your spirit out there,” remarked John
Lanigan, BNSF’s executive vice president and chief marketing
officer, at a conference in Kansas City in early April. ;
