If there is one thing that should be top of mind when you’re buying your next truck, it’s aftersales backup.
Will the company you’re buying from have sufficient backup to support your business in the event of an accident or breakdown? How long are you going to have to wait for parts for something as simple as a service or brake rebuild?
This was brought home to the Australian transport media when we were taken on a guided tour of Hino’s stunning Parts Distribution Centre (PDC) in the Sydney suburb of Horsley Park.
The Hino PDC is a massive structure of some 9272 square metres with 10 covered loading bays that can be accessed by rigid trucks, single trailers and B-doubles.
Hino invested $18 million in the facility which opened in 2021 and has gained a reputation as one of the best parts facilities for trucks in the country.
According to Greg Bleasel, Vice President Product Support at Hino Australia, the PDC had its genesis in 2018.
“At that time, Hino Motors in Japan asked us to look forward to 2025 to see what business strategies we had in place and what we needed to support those strategies. In my particular case, it was to try and support the growth of parts and service in the business,” Bleasel said at a recent PDC media event.
“We identified that the current PDC (in Caringbah) was at a critical stage where it was running out of space. That PDC had served us from 1995 until 2021.
“Looking forward, we could see that by 2021 we wouldn’t have the space to store our parts – especially our large items.
“We looked forward at our projected parts sales and from 2018 to 2025 we projected 52 per cent increase in parts sales because of truck sales and the units in operation increasing. The risk was that if we didn’t do anything with the warehouse, we couldn’t support our future strategies.”
The decision was made to build an all-new purpose-built PDC in Horsely Park. The location was chosen for its proximity to the M4 and M7 motorways, and the area is recognised as an existing Sydney logistics hub. It is also ideally situated to take in a growing transport corridor including the new Badgerys Creek airport.
The world-class facility was built in just 12 months from approval to final construction.
The facility is future-proofed by the fact that 20 per cent of the floor space is left unused and Bleasel said that space would probably come into play in around 2028.
Other examples of future-proofing the business for continued growth include more office space upstairs allowing for increased staff numbers, and the inclusion of a mezzanine level for increased parts storage.
Same-day service
Bleasel said the inventory pieces stocked at the PDC have increase from around 330,000 pieces to 509,000 pieces.
“By stocking more pieces and a larger breadth of parts, we’re able to increase the supply rate. The supply rate at Caringbah was 94 per cent and we’re now at 97 per cent to 100 per cent line fill,” he said.
“What that means is that is if a dealer puts in any order, no matter what it is, 97 per cent of the time we can fill it on the spot – we’ve got the parts in the warehouse, which is way above industry standard – this is all possible due to this new facility.”
“If we don’t have the stock, we have a parts locator system so the dealers can look at all the dealerships in Australia to see if they have the part.
Bleasel said Hino can also airfreight parts from New Zealand overnight, and if they don’t have it, it can come from Japan on a same-day dispatch.
“We have heavy-duty exchange transmission units kept in the warehouse, and we have a 24/7 callout for those working on the weekend or at night. Even though the warehouse operates from about 7am till about 5-6pm, the warehouse can be opened at any time for emergency parts,” he said.
Training and safety
The centre is run by Anthony Eisun and his staff of 12. He also runs a training and safety centre called the Dojo (roughly meaning a place of learning in Japanese). The Dojo area is for training both his staff and dealership staff on the safe and effective running of a parts centre.
“We’ve developed a PDC training course which replicates what we do here in terms of safety, manual handling and correct storage of parts. So, we bring the dealers here and run their staff and our staff through the training course,” said Bleasel. “It teaches them how to pick, pack, store efficiently and get the parts out to the customers quicker.
“We’re encouraging our dealers to run their parts operations on similar lines to the operation here.
“Some of the dealers have spent essentially no money at the dealership. They’ve just spent time relocating and changing locations and improving efficiencies. However, we have a couple of dealers how have invested a lot of money, and one of those is City Hino which is, I think, our second-biggest parts sales dealership.
Bleasel said they spent $5 million on the dealership, with a large chunk of that investment spent on the warehouse and the service area as well.
“They built a mezzanine level and upgraded their systems so that they went from 6000 locations in the parts warehouse to 20,000 locations without increasing their footprint or staffing levels.
“We worked very closely with them and it was a great result for all involved.
“Overall, we’ve improved the supply to the dealers, the quickness to the dealers, and by doing the warehouse training, they’ve been able to pass that on to the customers. The whole idea is to have the parts on hand and get those parts out as quick as we can.”
There is no doubt that the Hino Parts Distribution Centre is a success. It’s run with remarkable efficiency by Anthony and his team and stocks an amazing array of parts and rebuild kits for Hino trucks going back many years.
With so many new brands of trucks hitting the market, the industry is spoilt for choice. But when you’re looking for your next truck, it’s worth checking the company’s parts availability and aftersales backup. Not all have a system like this.