New Zealand Post has opened its newest facility, the Southern Operations Center, at Christchurch Airport’s Dakota Park.
The purpose-built building will serve as an overnight courier, parcels, processing and distribution hub for the South Island. The center will house courier, road and air freight operations and new automated parcel sorting facilities, and will also be the base for around 170 members of staff.
John Roche, New Zealand Post regional service delivery manager, said, “Bringing our operations together at one site in Christchurch is a significant investment for New Zealand Post’s overnight courier and parcel distribution network. In total, we’ve invested NZ$8m (US$5.6m) in the new facility.
“The location will enable us to increase processing speed and accuracy of tracked items and have inflight redirections to automatically intercept and retrieve identified parcels.
“The new parcel sorting technology will be able to process up to 6,000 parcels per hour, which is four times faster than now. The building will also support 14 air movements and 46 road line haul movements in a 24-hour period.”
New Zealand Post Group’s lease with Christchurch International Airport Limited for the new 14,600m² building runs to 2026, with an option to extend.
May 22, 2017