Prairie farmers needing parts for Agco equipment will now be able to get two-day delivery by truck from Regina instead of four- to five-day delivery from the Chicago area.
The Georgia-based machinery company recently opened its new full-service parts distribution centre (PDC) in Regina, completing a project announced last December to expand capacity at its site in the Saskatchewan capital.
“The (U.S.) border created a natural lag when parts were sent from the PDC in Batavia, Ill.,” just outside Chicago, Lyndon Lashinski, the Regina centre’s manager, said in a release.
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“That and the lack of inventory on hand in Regina has been an issue for dealers in the past. We have many dealers with significant sales volume in Western Canada and they needed the parts on the ground here in Canada to service customers better.”
Under an initiative Agco has dubbed “Parts for the Prairies,” the Regina PDC will now have over $8 million in parts inventory on hand, a 100 per cent increase, the company said. The expansion also includes a 67 per cent increase in stock numbers.
The upgrades at Regina’s Dewdney Avenue site “will ultimately result in faster service to growers during the busy spring and fall seasons, which dealers have been looking for,” the company said in its release.
“As growers continue to increase the size of their operations, the need to minimize downtime becomes increasingly important and the expansion of the Regina facility addresses the trend.”
“Whole goods and retail sales of equipment will not and cannot be successful if you can’t support it with quality parts and service,” Gerald Swystun of Saskatoon dealership Full Line Ag said in Agco’s release.
“Having the Regina location as a full stocking PDC will allow us to provide improved service and faster turnaround for our customers.”
