FKI Logistex Wins Material Handling Contract for DHL Package Sort Center

FKI Logistex (St. Louis) has won an additional contract from express delivery and logistics company DHL to supply a high-speed parcel sortation system for its consolidated air hub operations in Wilmington, Ohio (ILN). FKI Logistex is already under contract to supply the parcel material handling system for the ILN hub.

FKI Logistex will supply a state-of-the-art sorter matrix consisting of 16 high-speed tilt-tray sorter systems with the capacity to sort hundreds of thousands of packages per hour. The sortation system, one of the express delivery and logistics industry's largest single purchases of tilt-tray loop systems for sorting letters and parcels, is the heart of the new facility and part of the ongoing expansion of DHL's ILN hub, which will serve as a primary and secondary national sort center for DHL's overnight delivery air operations.

The $160 million hub automation and integration project, known as the DHL Express Automation Expansion Project, will begin this spring. The ILN hub upgrade is the first part of a multi-phase expansion plan for DHL. The second and third phases will include upgrades to systems at the DHL West Coast Distribution Facility in Riverside, Calif. and at the East Coast Distribution Facility in Allentown, Penn. The material handling systems at both hubs will be centered around high-speed sortation solutions from FKI Logistex, including tilt-tray and shoe sorters.