News

Freight industry on board for airport opportunity

Ten of Australia’s major freight companies have entered a memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with Western Sydney Airport. The MOUs will see Western Sydney Airport work with the air freight industry to design concepts for an on-airport freight precinct and begin discussions about potential operations from Sydney’s new airport.

Western Sydney Airport CEO Graham Millett said Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport has the potential to become Sydney’s most important freight hub, generating many of the Airport’s thousands of jobs.

“The Airport’s unrestricted 24/7 operations will be the key to unlocking new export opportunities for businesses and producers across Western Sydney and NSW,” he said.

“Goods produced in NSW will no longer have to be trucked to Brisbane or Melbourne in order to reach lucrative Asian markets overnight.”

Freight companies signing up to work with Western Sydney Airport on concepts for the air freight hub include Australia Post (including StarTrack), DB Schenker, DHL Express, DSV Air and Sea, FedEx, Menzies Aviation, Swissport, Qantas Freight, Skyroad Logistics and Wymap.

Freight companies signing up to work with the airport include Australia Post, FedEx and Qantas Freight.

Woolworths breaks ground on new $135m distribution centre

Woolworths has commenced building works on the supermarket’s new Melbourne Fresh Distribution Centre (MFDC) in Truganina, Victoria.

The multi-million state-of-the-art facility, which will be built by Vaughan Constructions, will store and deliver fresh produce and chilled products to hundreds of Victorian supermarkets, create 200 jobs during construction and 300 permanent new jobs when it opens in late-2020.

The custom-designed facility will replace Woolworths current operations at Mulgrave, and provide the leading national retailer with a market edge in terms of supply chain dynamics. The MFDC will be co-located with Woolworths’ meat supplier Hilton Meats’ production facility.

Co-location with Hilton and closer proximity to more fresh food suppliers

The new site will store and deliver fresh produce to supermarkets across Victoria. will take up to 600 trucks off the West Gate Bridge each week and a further 3,000 truck movements off Melbourne roads each year.

“This development will help us deliver top quality fruit and vegetables to our customers fresher, faster and more efficiently than ever before. At one-and-a-half times the size of the MCG field, the distribution centre will provide a significant uplift in capacity to support our continued growth in Victoria. We’re proud to be investing in a best-in-class supply chain network in Victoria – delivering fresher food to our customers, taking trucks off Melbourne’s roads, and creating hundreds of new jobs,” Woolworths Chief Supply Chain Officer Paul Graham said.

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Asahi introduces automation at its Heathwood DC

Dematic has helped Asahi Beverages to successfully increase productivity by 250 per cent with the installation of an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) in its new Heathwood DC.

Asahi Beverages has a number of distribution centres (DCs) located across Australia. Previously in Brisbane, Asahi operated across multiple locations and used manual forklifts for block stacking, which they found came with a lot of disadvantages and challenges.

“We previously had a very labour intensive system in place, with every truck that came in having to be unloaded by a forklift, we then had to receive the paperwork manually, check the pallets manually, move the pallets into the storage location and then do all that in reverse to pick them,” Nathan Lucinsky, Heathwood DC Manager, Asahi said. In making the decision to consolidate its sites into one DC and upgrade to an automated warehouse solution, Asahi wanted to achieve a number of benefits, including reducing costs, improving efficiency and productivity, and being able to better meet the needs of its customers.

The high bay racking at Asahi Heathwood DC is 13 levels high, 34 bays deep, and the ASRS extends to six pallet positions deep on either side of the six Komatsu signs deal with DHL in Australia Asahi recently made the decision to consolidate its sites into one DC.

Komatsu has signed a new multi-year agreement with DHL Express and DHL Global Forwarding, two divisions under Deutsche Post DHL Group.

DHL will import more than a million kilograms of Komatsu machinery, equipment and spare parts each year into Australia and New Zealand.

“Annually, we transact in excess of 1.5 million stock keeping units line sales in Australia. Often, exceptional

cranes, accessed by satellite carts. In total there are approximately 31,500 pallet storage positions.

“After assessing Asahi’s warehouse requirements, we knew that the best solution for them was the six-deep satellite ASRS. The ASRS we built for Asahi uses Dematic’s newest and fastest crane, the 1200 H1. This is also the tallest satellite system we have built in Australia,” Dominic Figliano, Project Manager, Dematic said.

customer service comes down to having products and parts precisely available when our customers need them. Logistics is a key component of our ability to deliver a first rate customer experience ensuring that our supply chain is fully optimised,” Sean Taylor, CEO and Managing Director, Komatsu Australia Pty Limited said.

In close coordination with Komatsu’s foreign offices and suppliers, DHL will provide complete end-to-end air freight imports for Komatsu primarily from the US and Japan to Australia across Komatsu’s three distribution centres in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. DHL will also manage the entire customs brokerage process, as trade compliance and regulations become increasingly crucial in optimising global supply chains.

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