Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — FLOW, a progressive logistics company that is part of Ghassan Ahmed Alsulaiman group, on Monday announced several key initiatives to drive its growth going forward, including the start of its new Omni-channel and e-commerce fulfillment center in King Abdullah Economic City, a bespoke facility for IKEA Saudi Arabia. The new facility, which has been tailor-designed to service IKEA's e-commerce and pay-and-go requirements, will be launched in two phases, to meet the growing needs of customers. The first phase will be operational in February 2017, where a total of 1,8000 orders per day may be picked, packed and dispatched. The second phase will handle up to 5,000 orders a day in 2 shifts with the possibilities to increase capacity further with 24-hour operation. Speaking during a special ceremony to announce the start new Omni-channel and e-commerce fulfillment center with the attendance of Fahad A. Al-Rasheed, group CEO and managing director of King Abdullah Economic City, Saud Alsulaiman, CEO of IKEA Saudi Arabia and top executives of FLOW, Frank Courtney, CEO of FLOW, said "we are pleased and humbled to move forward. Our strategic investments in people, process and technology allow us to leverage IKEA's network of stores to deliver a seamless Omni-channel experience." "One of our most important priorities is to optimize our e-commerce business and significantly improve the customer experience online. To accomplish this, we believe it is in our best interest to manage and control all aspects of our e-commerce platform as we move forward." "We expect this will provide us with the flexibility needed to grow and expand in an Omni-channel world, while allowing us to rapidly respond to changing customer dynamics and an ever competitive marketplace." Speaking about the employment of young Saudis at FLOW, Courtney said "FLOW has made the employment of Saudi nationals a priority for its operations and is seeking to find qualified Saudis. It also aims to qualify Saudi youth with the latest international technical skills and enrich their experience, which will enable them to compete in the logistic and e-commerce industries." He told Saudi Gazette that the project will require an estimated investment of SR670 million. In total, investment for the whole IKEA network will be about SR1 billion. Saud Alsuliman said "we have high hopes for this new facility and believe that FLOW is very capable in providing us with the distinctive solutions we need to meet our market requirements and help us achieve our Omni-channel retailing goals." Fahd Al-Rasheed said "the presence of FLOW further diversifies the types of manufacturing operations in the Industrial Valley and we are very pleased to have FLOW among the biggest national and international companies that the Industrial Valley has succeeded in attracting them to invest as part of their expansion plans." He announced that KAEC has succeeded to attract around 100 local and international companies and King Abdullah Port has the capacity of 3 million containers and will reach 7 million in 2018 to be the largest on the Red Sea. The automated facility will cover 7,5000 square meters, with the high bay warehouse at a height of 37.5 meters. The facility being designed with multi- floors, producing a total floor area of 117600 square meters, making the largest e-commerce fulfillment facility of its kind in KAEC. This initial design will be able to accommodate 180000 Euro or industrial pallet equivalent storage positions. The facility is designed in such a way to cater to both full pallets and fine pick e- commerce parcel solutions. It will operate 16 hours a day with only 180 people per shift for phase1.
