Gatik, Georgia-Pacific and KBX Announce Multi-Year Commercial Partnership to Disrupt Class 8 Short-Haul Market

Regional distribution architecture, which traditionally saw class 8 trucks transporting goods once or twice a week, is no longer effective for today’s on-demand economy. In response, retailers have turned to higher trip frequency along shorter, urban routes to give their customers what they need. That’s where Gatik comes in.

Today we announced our partnership with Georgia-Pacific and KBX. Georgia-Pacific is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp and paper-based packaging and KBX is the transportation arm for Koch Industries. We’ll be delivering Georgia-Pacific brands like Quilted Northern® bath tissue and Dixie® products to a network of over 30 Sam’s Clubs locations in Dallas, Texas. This is the first time class 6 autonomous box trucks have been deployed to disrupt short-haul logistics networks traditionally involving class 8 trucks, enabling Gatik to enhance service levels and product flow — providing unparalleled reliability, speed and consistency to our customer.

High Frequency, just-in-time

To underscore just how effective this partnership is, our operations will increase the number of Georgia-Pacific fulfillment runs to Sam’s Club locations from 1–2 days per week to 2–4 days per week. It’s a hyper-efficient, customer-centric model designed to reduce overstocked items, create more space for in-demand items and increase sales of available goods to Sam’s Club customers.

This is a complex operation, only possible with Gatik’s technology that’s purpose built for urban, semi-urban, and highway environments, on known, repeatable routes. We’re moving Georgia-Pacific shipments from point to point on predefined short-haul routes using a dedicated fleet with 26-foot boxes, transforming the long-established regional logistics status quo.

The operations represent the first time that class 6 autonomous box trucks have been deployed to disrupt short-haul logistics networks traditionally involving class 8 trucks.

By replacing traditional tractor trailers with autonomous box trucks, our solution will establish a more responsive and flexible logistics network, increasing the cadence of delivery runs and the flow of goods, while reducing logistics costs and enabling near real-time inventory fulfillment. Our class 6 autonomous box trucks will be operating multiple runs per day, on highways as well as urban surface streets — up to a total of 300 miles per day, per truck — enabling smaller shipments just in time to meet customer needs.

The scale of the opportunity

We founded Gatik to help our customers keep pace with shifting consumer expectations, and transport the items people need quickly, safely and efficiently. Our priorities haven’t changed, and we’re thinking big. KBX delivers over 6,000 loads per day across the USA, and we’re excited to see our operations form the foundation of KBX’s Autonomous Vehicle Program, as they prepare for wider-scale adoption of autonomous trucks to meet customer demand.

Acute driver shortages as well as rising transportation costs across the supply chain are posing significant challenges to North America’s major retailers. The need for a flexible, sustainable solution to address supply chain pressures has been brought into clear focus over the past three years. The validation we have for our use case comes directly from our customers, and our partnership with Georgia-Pacific and KBX is further testament to the fact that we’re not attempting to disrupt the market — the market has already been disrupted, and we’re simply providing the solution.