A NEW $8 million parts distribution warehouse in Sydney is taking on a key role in supplying technology needed for the fast growing farm machinery market in Asia.
Last week global machinery giant CNH, the parent company for the New Holland, Case IH and FlexiCoil farm equipment brands, officially opened its newly upgraded warehouse (covering 16,000 square metres) at St Marys.
The parts and service facility will serve 225 Case IH and New Holland Agriculture outlets in Australia and 20 strategic distributors in New Zealand and South East Asia.
It's $64m inventory also supports a secondary warehouse in Perth which supplies the Western Australia market.
Also just completed as part of the upgrade is a new training classroom area and workshops, equipped with the latest technology and training aids.
About 1200 mechanics and farm machinery technicians from Case IH and New Holland dealerships around Australia and NZ are expected to attend three- and four-day courses at the training centre this year.
The training centre and parts warehouse, which now boasts about 160,000 cubic metres of storage capacity, sit on the original 1970s manufacturing site for JI Case front end loaders and backhoes.
Historic St Marys - one of Australia's earliest farming areas - became home to Case IH's national head office in 1988, with stocks of spare parts doubling in 2005 when New Holland's head office moved to the seven hectare site from nearby Riverstone, squeezing its parts inventory into the 30-year-old sheds.
Work began on expanding the warehouse facilities in 2008, but with CNH's agricultural equipment business taking the global market lead in 2009, the company opted to double its local parts capacity to help keep pace with demand in Asia.
Australia's after sales market defied the global financial crisis in 2009, growing 14 per cent, according to CNH's Ray Osgood, the vice president of parts sales and marketing for countries outside North America and Europe.
The rise in local sales was helped noticeably by government investment incentives for farmers and other businesses, but was followed by a big lag in activity for much of last year.
General manager of parts operations in Australia and NZ, Dean Hopping, said although similar warehouse facilities had recently been built in India and China, CNH anticipated Australia would be the parts hub for much of expanding Asia for at least the next three to five years.
"Australia is a mature machinery market with a broad range of gear used here plus a depth of technical expertise, while South East Asia is expanding to satisfy rising demand for food and higher living standards," Mr Hopping said.
"We're leveraging our experience and technology history into Asia to help service that young, fast-growing market in places like China, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Korea."
He said although China was a growing agricultural and construction equipment market with huge potential for outside manufacturers like CNH, the range of gear moved into that market, and total sales, were still relatively small.
"We do, however, supply a lot of the big Steiger and Magnum tractor lines through here."
Machinery parts and "after sales" lines from factories in North America and Europe, were now being shipped to Australia for orderly supply from St Marys - rather than northern hemisphere factories - to regional distributors in Asia and NZ.
The St Marys development has also doubled the speed at which goods can be received and dispatched to dealers and customers thanks to its purpose-built design and more efficient storage and handling layout.
Radio frequency barcode technology enables CNH Parts and Service staff to improve the accuracy and delivery performance required in this business.
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