Coles has opened its second Automated Distribution Centre (ADC) as part of a more than $1 billion investment in technology led innovation.
The Kemps Creek, New South Wales, facility was officially opened yesterday morning by Coles Group Chairman, James Graham, and CEO, Leah Weckert.
Located 40 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD, the ADC has been designed to provide better availability for customers and create safer, more efficient outcomes for team members and suppliers.
The site spans 187,000 square metres – the equivalent size of around 25 rugby league fields.
With a building size of 66,000 square metres, Coles claims it’s one of the ‘biggest and most productive’ automated distribution centres in the world.
Once operating at full capacity, the Kemps Creek facility will service 229 NSW and Australian Capital Territory stores, with the ability to process more than four million cartons per week.
This is the equivalent of 32 million products sold in stores, and over the course of a year, around 1.6 billion sales units.
At the opening, Graham said he was extremely pleased to see the major investment in Coles’ supply chain come to fruition.
“Over 4,400 people contributed more than 1.8 million working hours to building the site, installing the automation and getting the system ready for operation – it is an achievement that everyone should be very proud of,” he said.
This is the second of two Witron facilities Coles has opened and is part of the company’s single biggest capital investment in its 110-year history.
The first ADC opened in Redbank, Queensland, in May last year and has since processed more than 140 million cartons, with customers in Queensland and northern NSW seeing a 20 per cent improvement in availability compared to other stores.
“Today marks a key milestone on our roadmap to enhance our supply chain and improve our operating efficiency, with a world-class facility that will deliver improved availability for our NSW customers,” Weckert said.
“We have seen great improvements in availability for our customers in Queensland and Northern New South Wales following the opening of Redbank ADC in Queensland last year – and I’m excited to see this second ADC bring these same benefits to NSW.
“This facility also delivers a step-change for the safety of our team, with the elimination of around 16 million kilograms of manual handling every week.”
The Kemps Creek ADC is fitted with a 3.5-megawatt solar solution on the roof which is among the largest rooftop solar solution in the Coles network, with Coles Group to be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy by the end of financial year 2025.
It is also half the footprint of the current two distribution centres in NSW, due to the utilisation of the 36-metre building height which is almost three times taller than Coles’ current DCs.
In other news, Linfox is celebrating a partnership with Coles which started more than 60 years ago and has expanded further since.
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