Case Study: Canadian Tire achieves a scalable, energy-efficient, high-throughput distribution center with Honeywell Intelligrated

Canada’s Most Well-Known Retailer Gears Up for Growth with Country’s Largest DC

Canadian Tire, Canada’s largest general merchandise retailer with 485 stores and rapid cubic-shipment growth, faced a distribution challenge: build a single DC that could store and move everything from tiny items to bulky goods while reducing touches, footprint and energy use. The retailer engaged Honeywell Intelligrated (Honeywell) to provide automated material-handling and sortation solutions, including the BOSS conveyor and sortation control system, high-speed wedge merges, sliding shoe sorters and pop-up wheel shipping sorters for a new 1.5 million sq ft facility.

Honeywell delivered a highly automated DC with roughly 13 miles (21 km) of conveyor and integrated controls that synchronize bulk and conveyable picks, enable seasonal ramping, and minimize manual handling. The system processes about 120 cartons per minute, operates at 400–600 ft/min (saving energy at lower speeds), supports capacity of more than 55 million cu ft/year (≈140,000 cu ft/day), improved labor productivity and reduced noise, and Honeywell continues to support expansions (e.g., increasing automotive SKUs from 52,000 to 75,000).

Canadian Tire

Dan Chan

Vice President