Whakatane, New Zealand, 2014-8-4 — /EPR Retail News/ — When Foodstuffs South Island purchased the 13 hectare Hornby ‘Greenfields’ property in February 2011 it was with a view to develop the site into the key South Island distribution centre (DC) and future of supply chain for the South Island business.
Construction at the site commenced in 2013 with the build expected to be complete by September 2014. Relocation of the Papanui DC to Hornby gets underway from mid-August this year with a view to completion by October 2014.
The new Hornby DC is a massive development taking up 32,200m2 and brings the total ambient site up to 46,000 m2. This means the site will have a pallet capacity of 43,000 pallets a significant increase on the existing 27,000 we have available in Christchurch at present . Despite the significant investment the business has made in Hornby, Foodstuffs South Island continues to remain committed to the Dunedin RDC which according to John Mullins, General Manager Supply Chain, will be responsible for regional distribution of fast and medium moving products.
“It’s a huge task transitioning distribution across from Papanui and Dunedin to Hornby. The whole process requires strong supplier input and communication and we have been working with our suppliers for some time to prepare for the August-September transition,” says Mullins.
“The benefits are significant to both our members and suppliers. Hornby promises to deliver a wide range of benefits including a reduction in the amount of order handling, transportation efficiencies, and improvements to order scheduling. For suppliers a DC that can handle slow moving goods, delivers a single point of contact and offers streamlined DC processes can only be a good thing. The more efficient we are as a business the easier it will be for our suppliers to meet their own business objectives,” says Mullins.
Mullins confirms that further centralisation of split case picking will follow in March 2015 with continued systems development promising to improve the existing processes. A temperature controlled DC extension is planned on site and more details on this will be revealed in time.