DHL uses Penang hub as model in expansion

DHL will spend US$61.6 million in Asia Pacific over the next five years to grow its technical services business, boosted by the success of its first fully-integrated technical services competency centre in Penang, Business Times reported.

DHL Supply Chain (DSC) Asia Pacific chief executive officer Paul Graham said the 200,000 sq ft Penang distribution hub has been a successful model as an integrated technical centre, and as such the company plans to expand it to other countries like China, India, Australia and Japan.

He said DHL has used Penang as a test-bed, where for the past 12 to 18 months, it had been building the capacity at the centre, making sure it worked well before it started spending on the regional expansion.

"We are ready to expand it on the regional basis. The Penang model is basically copied to the regional market," he said.

Graham said the company has spent "tens of million ringgit" on the Penang hub to expand the physical assets and equipment and built the centre up to the world standard.

"Penang is obviously the centre of excellence when it comes to technology manufacturing. Therefore, we can draw on the engineering talent pool," he said.

The Penang distribution hub provides warehousing and distribution services, transporting finished products from the factory and distributing them on a country-wide, regional or global basis. It also manages the service parts, involving dispatching new parts and taking back old parts.

"Now, what we are doing is preparing the parts and inspecting them in the same facility, so we are able to have one point of contact within one physical space and not have to move all these parts around Malaysia or the region.

"This provides significant savings for customers in terms of environmental footprint and we can recycle the parts back into the supply chain, so customers don't have to own the inventory because the recycle time is much quicker," he said.
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)