Boeing Supplier Spirit AeroSystems Completes Warehouse Consolidation with Digital Logistics Center

Soul AeroSystems, Boeing's biggest supplier, has finished a warehouse combination effort years in the making at its Wichita, Kansas, campus, CEO Tom Gentile said on the company's income call Tuesday.

The new Global Digital Logistics Center brings what was 500,000 square feet of warehouse space into a seven-story 150,000-square-foot facility, Gentile said.

"We have leveraged technology, similar to what other world-class distribution centers use, which translates into a more accurate and timely part handling and delivery system to the mechanics building product on our factory floor," he said.

Spirit AeroSystems announced it had broken ground on the new logistics center in 2018, noting that it will help to increase storage capacity and the effectiveness of recovering parts, according to a press release from the time.

Business has slowed at Spirit AeroSystems. The number of shipsets the supplier delivered dropped from 1,791 out of 2019 to 920 out of 2020, as indicated by slides presented during the earnings call.

"Almost immediately in 2020, we started with the need to react to multiple production rate reductions, due to the 737 MAX grounding and then the COVID pandemic impact," Gentile said.