Caterpillar’s new distribution centre is the 21st
in its global network and its first in Africa.
Equipment — the official Caterpillar dealer in
11 South African regions and seven southern
African countries. Under the arrangement, a
portion of the facility will host Barloworld
Equipment’s retail parts operation.
“We decided to take this approach after an
extensive study. The benefits of the co-location
include improved parts availability to customers,
as well as increased velocity in filling parts orders
given the proximity of the dealer’s retail parts sales
counter to the regional distribution centre,” said
Bonnie Fetch, Caterpillar director of Aftermarket
Parts Distribution.
According to Charter, Caterpillar is confident
that the co-location arrangement will work well
for the company, and it already has another pilot
planned in Australia. “Even in the short time
that the centre has been operating here, we have
seen the benefits,” he said. Charter added that
the advances in digitisation and analytics over
the past few years have had a significant positive
impact on distribution, with better inventory
and machine tracking capabilities enabling better
placement of parts.
Caterpillar’s investment in a new, more
efficient parts distribution facility demonstrates
its commitment to its African customers,
and forms part of the company’s previously
announced plan to invest more than USD1-
billion in countries throughout Africa over five
years, together with its independent dealers and
the Caterpillar Foundation.
“This is just another illustration of what we
want to bring to South Africa, which is not only
about investing in physical assets, but first and
foremost in people. We have also negotiated
an Equity Equivalent Investment Programme
with the South African Department of Trade
and Industry, which is the largest programme of
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