PACCAR Parts’ warehousing, manufacturing and Parts Distribution Centre (PDC) in the Melbourne suburb of Bayswater has benefited from a major investment and expansion.
The multimillion-dollar development will further improve the time it takes for essential parts to reach dealers, according to PACCAR Parts General Manager Mark Santschi.
The original Bayswater PDC was built in 1985 and then extended in 1996 when it more than doubled in size. With this update the PDC has increased by nearly 50 per cent again to 15,700m².
The expansion project drew on ideas and innovation from PACCAR’s other PDCs around the world.
These include a mezzanine level in the new facility, a spiral conveyor system, and battery powered carts for ferrying parts.
The mezzanine allows for some 13,000 smaller parts weighing up to 2kg to be stored above the warehouse floor, which has enabled adjustment to aisle widths and picking paths that help make the site safer and more efficient.
The new PDC is also more environmentally friendly, thanks to the fitment of rooftop solar panels and additional water storage tanks.
“The entire new section of the building has a 257-kilowatt rooftop solar system that captures energy from sunlight, there is also 16 water storage tanks in addition to the 12 we already had,” said Santschi.
“Once the solar panels are hooked in to our building management system, they should cut our energy consumption by about a third,” he said.
The rain water that’s captured services toilets and gardening, with excess water used in PACCAR’s adjacent truck manufacturing facility, which has been the home of Kenworth truck manufacturing in Australia since 1971.
“PACCAR remains committed to providing outstanding product availability and customer service across Australia. With more than 250,000 available truck parts and accessories, and utilising our highly efficient inventory management and innovative warehousing technologies, our new Bayswater PDC stocks every imaginable part to quickly service PACCAR’s extensive dealer network,” said Santschi.
