Australia Post has opened its newest and largest parcel facility in Brisbane, ahead of the busy Christmas period.
At the size of eight football fields with over 500 employees on site, Automated Guided Vehicles, robotic arms and parcel pickers, the facility will be able to process 700,000 parcels per day at full capacity.
The $240 million investment in the flagship facility comes complete with two Beumer high-speed sorters capable of processing over 50,000 parcels per hour, four robotic arms that can together clear 320 cages per hour, a parcel picker that can move 2,500 parcels per hour, and 23 automated guided vehicles that can lift and move objects weighing up to 1.4 tonnes each then place them down to an accuracy of ~5mm.
Australia Post Group chief operating officer, Bob Black, said he was thrilled to mark an early start to the Christmas peak period by opening the 50,000 square metre facility on a 130,000 square metre site.
“Australians love online shopping, spending $27.5 billion nationally online last year and this facility will be able to process those parcels more efficiently right across the network – getting it from merchant to customer quicker,” he said.
“Queenslanders are big online shoppers, with three of the top 10 postcodes – Toowoomba, Mackay, Bundaberg – each experiencing strong growth all above 20% in 2018. What we’re also finding is that shoppers are jumping online earlier to snap up deals in annual online sales events, which means we’re getting bigger volumes, earlier in the peak period.
“As we approach Christmas, we’ll have more planes in the air, more vehicles on the road, more people in our facilities and on the phones, and our Post Offices will be open longer so we can deliver our customers the best festive season yet.”