Design and operate the physical network that moves an order from available inventory through processing to the customer. The choices include facility locations, inventory placement, regional boundaries, capacity and transport connections.
How Fulfillment Network Design works
Placing stock and processing capacity near relevant demand can shorten travel and improve service; coordinating flows can raise utilization. These choices must balance speed and selection against idle capacity, duplicated stock and transport cost.
How companies won with Fulfillment Network Design
From the win chains in Strategy Canon case studies: what the winner did, and what its rival did at the same step.
vs. Shift Technologies
Carvana
National capacity built ahead of demand
What it did
Hub-and-spoke network from 21 metros (2016) to ADESA's 56 sites (2022): +2M units of capacity, 80% of Americans within 100 miles
Shift Technologies
Consolidated to three West Coast markets (2022), about 21,000 retail units against Carvana's 412,000
Which network configuration or operating choice improved delivery, selection or unit economics, what trade-offs did it resolve, and what evidence distinguishes the working system from a list of facilities or investment plans?
Who names it
Author
What they call it / where it appears
Amazon Science +
Fulfillment network regionalization and network optimization — the tag label is editorial
Note. Building warehouses, buying sites or announcing logistics investment is insufficient. Identify the coordination problem and contribution to customer value or economics. Difficulty alone is not proof of a moat: scale economies, accumulated assets and Process Power require their own evidence. Preserve failed investments as history without assuming a winning capability.