Finning open National Distribution Centre

New £8 million state-of-the-art warehouse facility in Cannock to support company’s growth plans

FINNING have opened their £8 million purpose-built National Distribution Centre in Cannock to support continued customer growth in after-sales support and maintenance.

The state-of-the-art warehouse facility in Cannock houses all of the dealership’s engines plus 60,000 different product lines, all of which are available for next-day delivery. In addition, the company has worked with its transport and logistics provider to replace eight existing trailers with new higher-spec vehicles.

Finning UK and Ireland’s managing director, Neil Dickinson, said: ‘With more than 800 service engineers in the field, it is vital that we have the best logistics in place to help them support our customers. Rapid growth over the last few years means that we had almost reached capacity with our existing warehouse facilities.

‘When you consider our ambitious growth plans over the next few years, it became very clear that we needed to invest in our logistics in order to maintain and further improve the levels of service that our customers have come to expect from us.’

Finning UK and Ireland will be the first Caterpillar dealer in Europe to use ‘Smart Sourcing’ technology, which allows Finning to deliver parts on time and in full to the customer’s specific requirements.

Steve Smith, parts operations manager for Finning UK and Ireland, said: ‘The opening of this new distribution centre follows five months of hard work by my team and CEVA Logistics, who will be managing the facility on our behalf.

‘The transfer of approximately 2 million parts items from numerous storage locations into one central facility was achieved whilst retaining the level of service that our customers expect during the transition.

‘This significant investment not only meets the needs of today, but also factors in plenty of capacity for our future growth plans.’

As well as expected savings in energy usage from a reduced number of storage sites and reduction in transport movements, the design of the new facility also incorporates energy-saving lighting, a biodiversity area at the rear of the site and the first electric car charging points within the company.

Also, to ensure business continuity in the event of a fire, the National Distribution Centre has a fire-protection system that features 9.5km of pipework and more than 3,000 sprinkler heads covering each level of racking.

Officially opened by Neil Dickinson on October 24, the new National Distribution Centre houses all of the parts and engines for Finning’s Equipment Solutions and Power Systems businesses.