Yamaha is a massive company, with interests in multiple powersports areas. It’s also not afraid to try new things—which could be why, on June 9, the company broke ground on its first-ever SMART warehouse. The facility is located in Newnan, Georgia, and will focus on producing Yamaha’s ATVs, WaveRunners, side-by-sides, and golf carts.
The acronym SMART stands for “Sequenced Material and Reduced Transportation,” which will use a variety of automated storage and retrieval technologies to increase efficiency. As a result, Yamaha estimates that its dealer fulfillment response time could be reduced by as much as 50 percent in the areas served by this warehouse alone. Additionally, it will have an observation deck so school kids can come and observe the manufacturing action on field trips.
