Zappos.com Implements Mobile Fulfillment System

Online retailer Zappos.com implements the Kiva Mobile Fulfillment System in four months. Zappos has deployed a fleet of Kiva's mobile robotic drive units and inventory storage pods at its Shepherdsville, Ky. facility to support their rapid order growth and expansion into new categories such as apparel, sportswear and accessories.

"Virtually all the previous automation system deployments I've overseen took a year or more to design, build and test," said Craig Adkins, vice president of fulfillment operations, Zappos.com. "We were amazed that Kiva transformed our new warehouse from bare concrete to fully operational readiness with trained supervisors and associates just four months after we signed the purchase order. We're already working on designs to cube out the building with Kiva's MFS on multi-level mezzanines."

With an emphasis on e-commerce orders requiring split-case picking, the Zappos.com distribution center needs to manage a huge range of unique products, while shipping orders as quickly as possible. The Kiva MFS helps inventory to manage itself, and transforms the DC from a serial-process operation to a massively parallel processing order fulfillment engine. As a result, the Kiva MFS helps breakthrough improvements over generally accepted material handling benchmarks, including order picking speed, order accuracy, volume scalability and flexibility in reconfiguring operations or responding to market changes.