WEBER RECLAIMS TRANSPORT GLORY
Alfred Weber spent his professional life as an economist working out why industry location is such an important factor in determining businesses success . In 1920s he formulated the least cost theory of industrial location which tries to explain and predict the locational pattern of industry at a macro-scale.
Alfred Weber formulated his theory on industrial location where the transportation costs of raw materials and final product to market was lowest. His work modelled existing enterprise success and failure which was used as a tool to select industrial location for future enterprises.
Weber would be pleasantly surprised to see elements of his theory matching today's industrial activity occurring at the Bomen Business Park. The effect of globalisation on demand and supply of goods and services has been to nourish developing countries economies and unleash major economic growth, and companies now have a global perspective on locational decisions. Globalsiation is a more recent phenomenon than when Weber first propounded his theory, however the basic theory still applies. The cost effectiveness in transport to and from the manufacturer remains critical.
Bomen Business Park is in Wagga Wagga, part of the Riverina region of NSW and located centrally between Sydney and Melbourne. The Business Park offers excellent access to the south-eastern part of the country where 60% of Australia's population live. Wagga Wagga is a significant regional centre..
Zooming in, Bomen straddles either side of the railway between Melbourne and Sydney with direct access to Sydney and Melbourne Ports, and has excellent access to the State and National road network. At around 15km2, Bomen could probably accommodate Wagga's urban area some 2 times over. However Bomen's scale and the amount of land potentially available for development give Bomen qualities that make it unique, possibly in Australia, for developing as a manufacturing and logistics hub.
Recent investment of some $120m from two companies, Renewed Metal Technology and Riverina Oils and Bio Energy, will see close to one million tonnes of product annually coming to Bomen to be processed. Clearly one of the decisions to locate at Bomen is the strength it offers in managing logistics and transportation of both inward raw material and outward final products. The major industrial investments at Bomen Business Park are testimony to the fundamental truths behind Weber's location theory, and the importance for firms that are competing in a global marketplace to rigorously analyse the benefits of a strategic location for their production facilities.
