Poste Italiane today opened the largest e-commerce hub ever to be built in Italy. The logistics centre, located within the Bologna Freight Terminal, covers a total area of 75 thousand square metres, equivalent to 10 football pitches.
Using the latest technology and a system of nextgeneration robots, the facility is capable of sorting 250,000 parcels a day. 600 people are responsible each day for the handling and distribution of parcels at the new hub, which was built at a total cost of €50 million.

The opening ceremony was attended by Poste Italiane’s CEO, Matteo Del Fante, the Italian President, Sergio Mattarella, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economic Development and Employment, Luigi Di Maio, Under Secretary of State for Employment, Claudio Durigon, the President of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Stefano Bonaccini, and the Mayor of Bologna, Virginio Merola.

“The new hub,” said Mr Del Fante, “is a strategic infrastructure marking a further step in the process of transforming our core letter post and parcels business and maximising the potential offered by the growth in e-commerce. Operating in synergy with Italy’s most extensive distribution network, exploiting the opportunities offered by the digitalisation of services to drive growth, and taking advantage of the benefits offered by convergence between digital payments and mobile telecommunications, the Bologna hub will enable us to deliver the development and innovation targeted in our Deliver 2022 strategic plan, and make a decisive contribution to the spread of e-commerce and digitalisation in Italy.”

The Bologna facility has a key role to play in Poste Italiane’s plan to grow its logistics operations on the back of the development of online shopping. This means investment in new technologies, alliances with strategic partners and the introduction of services designed to meet the needs of people who shop on line and of businesses that sell their products over the Internet. The implementation of this strategy has led to the rollout of the new Joint Delivery Model, introducing afternoon and weekend delivery rounds, and the creation of Poste Italiane’s “Punto Poste” network, consisting of over 3,000 participating tobacconists’ shops and other outlets and 350 automated lockers where customers can collect and return their online purchases. This network is due to be expanded further and integrated with Italy’s largest distribution network, made up of approximately 13,000 post offices with a Poste Restante service.

The new hub has chalked up a number of records: it took 17 months to complete with a labour force of 340 working over 140,000 hours, and involved the laying of 63 km of cable and 35,000 square metres of tarmac and the use of 295 tonnes of steel. Solar panels covering 5,500 square metres have been installed on the roof of the hub, generating more than enough energy to meet the facility’s daytime needs and cutting annual CO2 emissions by 225 tonnes. The building has been awarded a “Gold” LEED certificate, the most widely used certification system for sustainable buildings in the world.

The Bologna sorting centre once again confirms the key role played by Poste Italiane. With its 157-year history, a network of approximately 13,000 post offices, 134 thousand employees, total financial assets of €514 billion and around 35 million customers, Poste Italiane is a driver of job creation and growth, combining tradition and innovation as an integral part of Italy’s social and economic fabric, and occupying an unparalleled position in the country in terms of size, recognisability, reach and customer loyalty.

Source: Poste Italiane