Mercury Marine opens new centre

Mercury Marine, a division of Brunswick Corporation, has opened a new, purpose-built distribution centre to support its parts and accessories business.

The new 512,000 square foot facility is located near Indianapolis, Indiana, a major thoroughfare connecting Mercury’s global customers. It’s said it will improve delivery and service, and will add much needed capacity for scale, stability, and reduced logistics costs.

Mercury’s current distribution facility at its global headquarters in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, will be repurposed to support its propulsion systems, further allowing the company to increase capacity and production capabilities.

Earlier this year, the company announced plans to expand its Fond du Lac facility to accommodate growing demand for its propeller systems and to create space for the Mercury Racing division to develop new technology and products.

Mercury’s new Indiana facility will create almost 350 new jobs in its first year of operations while Mercury’s current distribution centre employees transition into new roles within the Fond du Lac campus.

“We are excited to officially open our new centralised distribution centre which will have an immediate and positive impact to our global channel partners,” says Chris Drees, Mercury Marine president. “We leveraged the most advanced distribution technologies in conveyance, scanning, and packaging to move products through the warehouse efficiently and accurately to better serve our global customers.”

Products received, warehoused, and shipped in the new distribution centre include engine maintenance tools, lubricants, and service-related parts and accessories. The new facility’s volume, 18 million cubic feet of space, is more than three-and-a-half times greater than the Fond du Lac distribution centre it replaces.

In line with Mercury’s commitment to sustainability, the new building is LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) certified. Part of the design to achieve this certification is a portion of the roof-mounted solar array that has been installed.