Squeeze on warehousing near Durban port

ALAN PEAT
THERE IS a shortage of warehousing in the Durban port area, according to Garth Louden, who heads up warehousing at the harbour-based Access Freight.
“There is a distinct shortage within five kilometres of the harbour,” he said, “and anything outside that radius costs a lot of money in transport costs.”
But Access’s 4 000m2 warehouse is currently “pretty full”, with a bumper season in tobacco from Zimbabwe grabbing a lot of space in recent times.
But the company’s main regular throughput at the moment is plate glass imports by a client company - with a 3 000m2 allocation in the warehouse reserved for this glass storage.
“They are importing large quantities of glass,” said Louden, “anything up to 4 000-tons per consignment.”
This because production capacity restraints in SA mean that quite a lot of local glass demand has to be brought in from foreign sources.
“In its 2.4-metre x 1.5-m and 3.5-m x 1.8-m sizes, it is quite a specialised product and obviously requires very careful handling.”
To gain in handling productivity, Access has a 12.5-ton gantry crane to move cargoes around in its warehouse.
It also has a forklift truck which has been fitted to carry two pallets at a time, Louden told FTW.
“Basically, this has four forks mounted on the front of the unit,” he said, “which means that one driver and one forklift are effectively doing the work of two.
“This improves our productivity, and speeds up our turnaround time.”
Another big mover of the moment, is empty beer cans to Angola.
“This is moving at a rate of over a hundred 40-foot (12-m) container loads a month,” he said.
Access Freight also has a warehousing services company in Johannesburg, handling warehousing business in the City Deep inland harbour area in the city.