Honda's East Malaysia Centralised Distribution Centre

Honda Malaysia has been aiming to expand their services in the east side of our country and now they’ve done it. By Jerrica Leong

Honda had announced their plans to expand into East Malaysia back in March, and now they are now opening their first ever logistic hub in Sabah and Sarawak. It is known as the East Malaysia Centralised Distribution Centre and the centres are set up in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and Kuching, Sarawak.

Honda Malaysia hopes that the new logistic hub would help ease the Honda dealers’ operational activities and Honda’s daily operations. Vehicle deliveries in East Malaysia are expected to be reduced from the current nine days to only three days. Honda dealers have been experiencing issues of damages and minor scratches on the vehicles due to logistic transportation and long hours of sun exposure while waiting for delivery, the company hopes that the new hub would help avoid these issues and maintain the quality of the cars.

The logistic hubs will be operated and managed by the shipping and logistics management company Giga Shipping Sdn Bhd. The company will manage the Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) Management which will include standard key management system like a good scrub-down at the washing bays available before delivery to dealers, security system to ensure safety of vehicles from thefts, parking lot management system, stock monitoring, Kaizen system to ensure that vehicles remain in good condition while in storage and a thorough inspection facility.

Honda has seen an improvement in sales over at the East Malaysia region with a total of 1617 units sold between January and April 2015 compared to last year’s 1116 units sold in the same period. That is an increase of 45 per cent! This led to Honda Malaysia’s decision to the expansion plan to support and strengthen its operation in that region. A regional office, training facilities and a parts warehouse to support the dealers and customers there are in their plans. Their aim is to increase total sales in East Malaysia to over 600 units a month by 2016.