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"Waiting on parts" will be a notation seen less often on
the Volkswagen and Audis in your shop with the opening of a new,
366,000 sq foot parts distribution center (PDC) in Denton, Texas, just
outside of Ft. Worth. Located practically next door to the Federal
Express hub at the New Alliance Airport built by the Ross Perot
organization, the "facing depot," as it's known in VW talk, will serve
72 VW and Audi dealers in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico,
Colorado and a part of Kansas.
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| The Volkswagen and Audi parts distribution center opened November 1 and serves 72 dealers in the Southwest and Colorado. |
The new facility will enhance
delivery in these areas because parts previously had to be shipped from
Jacksonville, Florida. Other VW distribution centers are located in
Ontario, California; Chicago; and New Jersey.
In
addition to being the facing depot for these Southwest dealers, the
highly automated, air-conditioned warehouse will house "slow moving"
parts for the entire country. This is important to Southwest body shops
because those slow moving parts include many small interior items often
needed for collision repair.
"We can
ship emergency orders for slow moving parts via FedEx as late as 8 pm
so they can arrive at the dealer the next day in most cases," said PDC
Manager Mike Pavicich. VW dealers' regular daily orders in metro areas
are customarily shipped on dedicated trucks and arrive early in the
morning (often at 4 a.m. when the driver makes an unattended delivery)
the day after they are ordered so that the dealer can deliver them to
shops early in the day.
The new PDC
employs 50 people and stocks $25 - $30 million of inventory including
25,000 - 30,000 fast moving parts and another 85,000 slow moving parts.
Unlike some auto manufacturers who rely on larger wholesale dealers to
be the parts warehouse for smaller dealers, VW has set up its
distribution system so that every dealer can get the parts directly
from VW of America and deliver them to shops on a timely basis.
"We've
invested a ton of money here to make certain that we can get real VW
parts into repair technicians hands when they need them," said
Pavicich, who explained that the challenge at the PDC is to use all of
the new technology effectively. "We've got this great automated picking
system with a parts carousel that actually brings the parts to the
people doing the picking. It's faster and more accurate, but it takes
trained people to make it all work."
The
new center opened November 1 of last year and some of the bugs are
still being worked out, but Pavicich says that Southwest shops should
already be seeing a difference in availability and delivery of their VW
parts.
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