FedEx Opens Massive Sorting Facility near Memphis International Airport

On October 30, FedEx executives celebrated the opening of a 1.3 million SF automated sorting facility near the Memphis International Airport in Tennessee.

"Today is truly an exciting day," said Richard Smith, Chief Operating Officer for FedEx International and son of FedEx founder Fred Smith. "[It] marks an important milestone towards modernizing, automating and strengthening how we work to deliver for our customers and our team members."

The building has a length of three football fields with eleven miles of conveyor belt. Company leaders said it has the capacity to sort 56,000 packages an hour.

Ghafari and Holt Engineering worked together to provide a turnkey design for the four-level, automated 54k interconnect sort system, comprised of 25 sortation lanes servicing 252 full-size destination container positions. The system is fully redundant to provide uninterrupted service, including dual recirculation to any and all traffic lanes. Ghafari supported Holt by providing the mechanical conveyor detail engineering, along with the control architecture and detail panel designs.

Watch a feature on the grand opening of this massive facility on FOX13 Memphis here.