Asda Import Centre, Teesport

When supermarket giant Asda, part of Walmart Group, built its £20m import centre consisting of a deep sea container facility and warehouse at Teesport, Middlesbrough in 2006, they created over 300 new jobs in the local area.

The 360,000 sq ft warehouse, spanning an 18 acre site on the PD Port site at Teesport, enables Asda to distribute its non-food stock across the North of England, reducing road miles by 2 million per year. Millions of televisions, CDs, clothes and other non-food goods arrive from the Far East by container to Teesside, destined for Asda supermarkets all over the UK.

The new staff needed to be trained immediately to operate the millions of pounds worth of new warehousing equipment, in order to comply with Asda’s own site safety policy, and to develop staff in line with Asda company values.

By working in partnership with Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Middlesbrough College, System Training were able to put together an extensive training support package, sourcing funding to assist in the delivery of specialist fork lift truck and health and safety training to the new workforce at Asda.

Teaching tirelessly and often through the night to coincide with Asda shift patterns, System Training’s instructors and assessors delivered over 220 new forklift truck courses and licences to staff on the Teesport site. This included accredited courses for Very Narrow Aisle (VNA), Reach and Counterbalance trucks, along with 114 National Vocational Qualifications at Level 2 in Specialised Plant and Machinery Operations.

System Training helped source over £70,000 of training funding for Asda whilst offering a high quality of service and flexibility in its training provision.