Established in 1932, Hastings Deering is one of the top five Cat dealers in the world. To better position the business for future growth, the leading equipment supplier has partnered with Körber Supply Chain to expand, improve productivity and adopt new supply chain capabilities with the deployment of a world-class WMS.
Hastings Deering is the exclusive distributor for the sale of Cat equipment, technology solutions, parts and service support throughout Queensland, Northern Territory, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia.
Founded more than 90 years ago by Harold Hastings Deering, the company has a long-standing history in the mechanisation of Australia.
Headquartered in Brisbane, Queensland, today Hastings Deering has more than 3500 employees across 23 business service centres throughout the regions and countries it serves.
In 1992, the Hastings Deering Group was purchased by Sime Darby Berhad, a multinational organisation and one of the world’s oldest and largest Cat dealer networks.
According to Hastings Deering, the combination of its rich history, the expertise of its people and its genuine commitment to understand its customers’ needs continues to sustain Hastings Deering as a market leader providing solutions that deliver superior outcomes for its customers.
Creating a world-class service with a world-class solution
After a period of significant growth, Hastings Deering recognised the need to upgrade its Warehouse Management System (WMS). “Our current Warehouse Management System lacks the required functionality to support future growth, requires multiple system interfaces to run, is classified as obsolete by the software provider and is not utilised by all warehouses across our network,” Mark Danckwerts, Manager – Program Development at Hastings Deering says.
The equipment provider’s objective was to deliver a world-class Warehouse Management Solution (WMS) across Hastings Deering and the wider Sime Darby Dealership Network.
In September 2020, after an extensive RFP process, Hastings Deering selected Körber Supply Chain’s Cloud K.Motion Warehouse Advantage Warehouse Management Solution.
“We conducted a rigorous RFI and RFP selection process with large enterprise WMS providers, enumerating several capabilities in the platform, vendor, system integrator, solution, and alignment of organisations. Körber came out ahead of the other vendor. Moreover, the flexibility and architecture of the solution to configure our processes were seen as key competitive advantage for us,” Mark says.
The deployment and implementation of this project will see Hastings Deering and Körber partner to build a better future by simplifying processes, building systems and aligning warehouse operations to deliver industry best practice.
This project will also be the first WMS implementation for Körber in ANZ in the industrial spare parts market, across a range of industries including mining, construction, power systems, government, primary industries and marine.
Targeting future growth with cloud solutions
According to Jamie Sterling, Hastings Deerings key factors in selecting Körber was its willingness to challenge the status quo, provide industry insight, and be a partner who is a solutions-driven rather than a product vendor. “Furthermore, Körber’s culture was another key contributing factor the success in winning this opportunity,” he says.
Jamie continues: “Hastings Deering needed a vendor who could help with the complex operations and could provide a future proof solution for their growth over the next 10 years, and also for a vendor who could provide a best of breed WMS in the cloud.”
According to Mark, Körber and Hastings Deerings are building a partnership for the future. “As this is a SaaS solution, ongoing growth in our business is co-dependent on having a WMS platform that enables us to expand, improve productivity, and adopt new supply chain capabilities over time. We are building the relationship at executive, execution, and technical levels,” he says.
After commencing in September 2021, the project will go-live in February 2023 and will be deployed across 20 sites in Australia, NZ, Papa New Guinea and New Caledonia.
For more information on Körber, click here.