Following a fire in February that completely destroyed NYK’s crossdock in St Katalinje Waver, Belgium, the company has opened a new centre at nearby Herentals.
The new 6,000m2 centre is twice the size of the previous facility and handles the overnight distribution of spare parts throughout the Benelux region and France.
“Herentals is the ideal location for the new crossdock centre because, not only is it centrally located for a Benelux operation, but it is also close to the parts warehouses of several customers that distribute large volumes of spare parts,” said Erik Derbaix, business unit manager of NYK’s Night Distribution services.
The 4,000m2 Sint-Katelijne-Waver cross dock was set up in December 2006 when operations moved from nearby Mechelen and in September last year NYK integrated spare parts deliveries for 90 Kia dealerships in Belgium and Luxembourg.
But at the beginning of February this year a fire started in the facility of a neighbouring company and spread to engulf the NYK cross dock.
Between the incident in February and the opening of the new facility in May this year, the Night Distribution division of NYK Logistics North Continent organised a temporary platform in Vilvoorde, near Brussels.
“As from day one after the fire, we organised a temporary platform at one or our transport partners' facilities in Vilvoorde,” Derabaix told Automotive Logistics News. “This functioned very well and there has been no interruption of service at all, not even one day. This was highly appreciated by all our customers.
During the temporary set up the service maintained overnight delivery to all of NYK’s customers, all of which have stayed with the company.
“We are doing the parts distribution for Kia in Belgium and Luxemburg for a while now and, in the meantime, also the parts distribution for the Fiat Group in the Netherlands has been integrated in our network,” affirmed Derbaix.
