Last week, JOST Australia celebrated the official opening of its new Victorian head office.
The 14,000 square metre site is located at Cherry Lane, Laverton North – and is more than three times the size of the company’s previous main facility.
As JOST continues to integrate its various businesses divisions – transport, agriculture and materials handling – into a single operating structure, this move will allow for improved efficiencies in distribution and improvements in the company’s capacity to serve the needs of its customers.
The JOST team began moving into the new site in September, with an official opening held on Thursday October 23 – which was well attended by customers, giving many of them their first view of the new purpose-built site.
As Corey Povey – JOST General Manager, Sales and Marketing – told Big Rigs, “The new site at Cherry Lane means we can bring all of our brands in under the one roof.”
This follows the recent acquisitions of Quicke front loaders and implements, and Hyva hook-lifts, skips and cylinders.
As Povey explained, the company had outgrown its previous premises. “Previously, we had to use off-site storage and the office was no longer big enough to accommodate all of our functions. JOST was in need of a larger site, and these recent acquisitions further cemented that necessity.”
The new site has been a few years in the making, so for the approximately 50 JOST staff now based there, the move has been a welcome change.
“It’s all about process and being efficient in what we do. Operating from this purpose-built, larger site has eliminated some of the bottlenecks we had experienced previously, by streamlining efficiencies. We have invested in a number of cranes for improved safety and productivity which our team love. We have also increased our painting capabilities by tripling our capacity in the paint booth,” Povey added.
Along with all of the improvements to processes and capacity, Povey said another important element to come from the move is the company’s ability to better service customers, big and small.
“It’s all about best practice and customer service excellence. Ultimately, that’s what we want to achieve. Here at JOST, we want to give our customers a fantastic experience.
“The new site incorporates a dedicated show room and training room, so we can invite customers onsite, for in-depth training on all of our products. That includes training around fifth wheel maintenance and best practices, how to identify issues, when to replace components, etc.”
Adding to the new site, an extensive showroom features many of the displays that were on JOST’s Brisbane Truck Show stand back in May. “This means we can provide demonstrations of what our products do, how they work and show the features and benefits,” Povey said.