The news: Cutter & Buck opened its second AutoStore DC in Grand Prairie, Texas, near Dallas, with more than twice as many bins per robot as its first.
Implications:
Throughput: The Texas design targets 1,256 bins an hour across 13 stations, or about 97 bins an hour per station, by our math.
Sizing: Build the grid for growth up front, because robots and picking stations can be added as orders grow. Cutter & Buck had to add 9,962 bins to its first grid after go-live.
The News
Cutter & Buck opened its Dallas Fulfillment Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, in October with an AutoStore system installed by Kardex, Kardex said. The system has 50,502 storage bins, 32 robots and 13 ports, the stations where workers pick from the bins the robots bring them. It is designed to deliver 1,256 bins an hour, and an AutoStore simulation of the design averaged 1,284.
Kardex’s software runs the system. A Kardex conveyor links it to embroidery, labeling and shipping, so blank and decorated orders leave from the same building. The site can hold up to 10 million units and will employ more than 150 people, the City of Grand Prairie said.
The operation is still in testing. Capacity will grow over the coming months, the company said.
Why It Matters
Texas opened with about 1,580 bins per robot, by our math, against about 630 when Renton, Washington, went live in 2023. Storage is the part Cutter & Buck had to grow at Renton after go-live, so Texas gets it up front and can add robots and ports as volume grows, Kardex said. “We weren’t starting from assumptions,” said Scott Sumpter, Cutter & Buck’s executive director of distribution, in the Kardex release.
Bins per robot at go-live. Texas: 50,502 bins, 32 robots. Renton: more than 34,000 bins, 54 robots. Source: our math from Kardex and AutoStore figures.
Last Time
Cutter & Buck built the Texas design from its Renton site, which went live in 2023:
Why it moved: Sales outgrew the building. Workers picked from a three-level pick module, which CEO Joel Freet said meant walking “8 to 10 miles a day,” Kardex said.
Payoff: Blank orders ship in under 10 minutes, and 12 people handle the peak season that once took 30, Kardex said.
Added later: Growth and more SKUs pushed Cutter & Buck to add 9,962 bins and more ports to the Renton grid after go-live, Kardex said.
Texas is Cutter & Buck’s top sales market, and before this site it shipped from DCs near Seattle and in Cincinnati. Freet said the Dallas site will improve service speed and lower freight costs for a large share of customers.
Peer Insights
Two other shippers changed more than their storage when they moved to AutoStore:
LT Apparel: The children’s clothing maker started in 2022 with about 20,000 bins, then grew to more than 38,000 bins and 36 robots. It also brought its 3PL work back in-house, which it says saves about $4 million a year. Peak staffing fell from more than 600 workers to fewer than 200.
Scentsy: The home fragrance seller paired AutoStore with batching software that groups orders sharing SKUs, so each picker fills 18 orders per session instead of 3. Productivity rose 50% in the first year, as we wrote.
What’s Next
Coming months: Grand Prairie finishes testing and ramps up capacity.
Q1 2027: In-house embroidery and heat transfer start at the Texas site, feeding off the same conveyor.
Dig Deeper
How it works: Kardex’s explainer on AutoStore.
Photo: Cutter & Buck
