SACD Freight is set to
open a new high-security
warehouse - catering
specifically for minerals – at
its City Deep premises later
this month.
Despite an exceptionally
tough year – particularly
on the import side – the
company is upbeat about the
future.
“What’s happening now
is likely to be short-term,”
regional director Dennis
Trotter told FTW. “It will
turn around so we are
investing now in a new
warehouse, which is an
extension of our existing
facility that will give us
around 38 000 sqm under
roof
“We’re hoping that it will
be fully operational at the
end of October.
“Security-wise it will
be very high tech, with
scanning and bar-coding
facilities in place.”
An important element of
SACD’s business activity
involves consolidating
commodities from the DRC
and Zambia in City Deep,
containerising them and
transporting the products to
ship’s stack.
“We don’t trade in Africa
but work with customers
who use our facility for
consolidation, offering them
a logistics solution within
South Africa.
“Volumes aren’t what they
were but we’re confident
they will recover fairly
soon,” he told FTW.
“Earlier this year we had
a lot of demand for capacity
and on the strength of that
we decided to extend our
warehouse.
“In the past six months we
have felt the ill effects of the
depressed commodity price
but that didn’t stop us from
building the facility – which
will be attractive to people
moving high-value cargo
because of the security.”
These developments
are all part and parcel of
the SACD philosophy of
changing its model to move
with the times.
“We’ve been around since
1977 and have had to change
our model many times since
then,” said Trotter.
Survival, in his view, is
all about keeping up to date
and adapting. “If you look
at our site now compared to
what it was - our focus was
always on the container, now
it’s on the cargo.
“Things will boom
again and we’ll see a lot of
different solutions that will
have been found in these
tough times – people are
working smarter because
they’re forced to.
“It’s a case of seeing out
the tough times, keeping
costs under control and
being ready to capitalise
when things improve.”
CAPTION
Dennis Trotter … ‘ready to
capitalise when things improve.’
