FROM APPAREL TO PARCELS: LESSONS LEARNED AS DISTRIBUTION CENTERS CONVERGE
For decades, the "Apparel DC" and the "Parcel Hub" lived in different worlds. Apparel facilities were the surgeons of the supply chain— requiring precision-handling of delicate fabrics, tiny polybags, and items on hangers. Parcel hubs, by contrast, were the heavy lifters, built to move rigid boxes at high throughputs.
But the lines have blurred. Thanks to the explosion of e-commerce and a need to reduce package sizing and weights, parcel networks now look remarkably like apparel DCs. If you walk through a modern carrier hub today, you aren’t just seeing boxes; you’re seeing a sea of flimsy polybags, lightweight mailers, and irregular "un-sortables."
The industry is learning a hard lesson: Speed is useless if the item doesn’t stay on the sorter.
