At foot of Uinta mountains. Humungous facility big enough to house six Boeing 747-8 jumbo jets. Also taller than a 747’s tailfin.
Goal: Putting product closer to customers
MAGNA, Utah — Winona-based Fastenal opened a gigantic high-tech warehouse and distribution center in the desert basin southwest of Salt Lake City. The 298,000 square-foot facility will receive products directly from manufacturing sources in the United States, Europe and Asia for trucking customers in the Rocky Mountain region from Alberta in Canada to Sonora in Mexico. The Magna facility will reduce dozens of the earlier 1,300-mile deliveries from the original Winona hub. Those deliveries had been to a hodgepodge of rented facilities in Utah. Fastenal’s chief executive, Dan Florness, said the new facility uses cutting-edge technology to streamline product intake, order picking, and shipping sortation. The center, dubbed UHB — short for “Utah hub” — is one of 17 Fastenal distribution centers, including two in Canada, two in Europe, and one in Mexico. Two of the centers have been updated recently for what Florness calls a “customer-centric service model.” The model puts sales people and inventory close to customers, he said. UHUB serves a region between hubs in the industrial city of Monterrey, Mexico, and in the Puget Sound city of Lacey near Olympia, Washington.
With eye to future, Fastenal sees UHUB as expandable…