Suzuki New Zealand has broken ground on a parts warehouse expansion project at its Whanganui headquarters.
CEO Tom Peck said importing a few hundred models of motorcycles, outboard engines and cars means there has been a growing need for adequate storage space.
“We’ve been struggling for room for our 175,000 line items in our warehouse.”
Suzuki New Zealand has been renting warehouse space in a variety of buildings scattered around the city, but Peck said the expansion project will bring all of the parts back under one roof.
When originally built, Peck said, the warehouse was not built tall enough to accommodate its growing inventory.
“A lot of modern warehouses are 8 to 10m high, and I think ours is about four, so we’re having to go out instead of up,” he said.
Once construction is completed – expected in April or May – all of the interior racking system will also be replaced, which Peck called “a major exercise”.
Suzuki has had a presence in Whanganui since 1962, when the Coleman family opened South Pacific Suzuki Distributors to import machinery. Suzuki corporate bought the business from the Colemans in 1984, just three years before shuttering its auto-mobile manufacturing plant in Castlecliff.
www.suzuki.co.nz
