ELDERS is moving its Western Australian wool business headquarters, show floor and woolstores to a former wool processing precinct at East Rockingham.
It currently leases space for its show floor and wool office, adjacent to the Western Wool Centre (WWC), in the AWH warehousing complex on the corner of Sudlow Road and Spearwood Avenue, Bibra Lake.
Its client's wool bales are stored throughout the four-warehouse AWH complex which surrounds Agrifood Technologies' WA laboratories, which are part of AWTA (Australian Wool Testing Authority) Ltd.
Elders shares a wool sampling bale coring line with other AWH wool warehousing clients, which include Elders' major competitor Nutrien Ag Solutions.
Nutrien is a part owner of AWH.
Originally Elders was also part owner of AWH when it was created in 1998, but sold its half share to stevedoring and global logistics company DP World Australia in 2014.
Its WA wool office, show floor and woolstore are understood to have been located at the AWH complex for at least two decades.
Before it begins moving into its new wool premises, Elders is negotiating some alterations with the owners of the stand-alone warehouse in Lodge Drive, East Rockingham, that once housed the last wool scours to operate in WA.
Jandakot Wool Washing operated at the same building from 1998, assisted by a $13.6 million State government-funded reverse-osmosis waste water treatment plant.
The wool processing precinct closed in 2009 when the wool scours were sold and exported to China, where early stage wool processors still use them.
The 24,000 square metre floorspace warehouse was sold in June last year by Knight Frank director Scott Bailey for a reported $17.5m to current owner Realside Ovest, an integrated investment, property development and property management business.
Elders is leasing 12,400m2 of the warehouse and a substantial external hardstand area which will become its Perth wool handling hub.
Along with a world-first solar-powered, low greenhouse gas emissions woolstore operated with autonomous driverless electric forklifts, to be built at Ravenhall as Elders' new Melbourne wool handling hub, the Perth wool handling hub is part of a $25m investment by Elders in a long-term commitment to the wool industry.
Elders has said it is also developing its own industry-leading software to deliver "a more efficient end-to-end selling process" for its clients.
In initially announcing the Melbourne and Perth hubs development in July, Elders managing director and chief executive officer Mark Allison said the new business will revolutionise wool handling.
"Elders is committed to providing exceptional customer service and contributing to the future success of our growers and the wool industry," Mr Allison said at the time.
"We are demonstrating this commitment by continual investment in supply chain optimisation, including the logistics, sampling, sales and storage of wool through automated warehouse operations," he said.
The East Rockingham warehouse will have solar power, new LED lighting has been installed to cut power usage and battery powered forklifts will be used.
Elders' Perth wool handling hub operations manager Ryan Fletcher said on Tuesday that while the Perth hub would initially not have all of the innovative technologies being established in Melbourne, some will gradually be introduced once they were proved at the Melbourne hub.
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Even without all of the low emissions technology to start with, the new Perth hub is expected to create operating efficiencies by bringing all of Elders' WA wool operations under the one roof and under its direct control, Mr Fletcher said.
"For example, at AWH we didn't have sole access to a coring line, so sometimes we cannot get wool tested when we want it tested ahead of a sale," he said.
"The new (AWTA approved) coring line at the Perth wool handling hub will be the fastest in WA, it will certainly be able to keep up with the flow of wool as it is delivered.
"Clients might even have the option of bringing the sale of their wool forward by a week, instead of us having to ring them and say we can't put their wool up this week because we can't get it core sampled in time.
"Farmers delivering their wool will find it (Perth hub) much more convenient - it's not far off the Kwinana Freeway - than battling the traffic to Bibra Lake and then waiting in line with all the other trucks delivering to the AWH complex.
"With the Perth wool handling hub our aim will be to provide our clients with an improved, more efficient service, while still retaining that face-to-face personal touch," Mr Fletcher said.
He said the wool office and show floor were likely to be transferred to the East Rockingham hub first and wool bale warehousing would transition gradually from the AWH complex to the hub once the new coring line was operating and wool deliveries began being accepted there.
Mr Fletcher said the aim was to have the Perth wool handling hub fully operating by July 1 next year.
