Ceva Logistics has signed a three-year contract with Mercedes-Benz to manage the shipment of spare parts from the Iberian Peninsula to its dealer network in the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands and the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, located in North Africa.
Ceva will handle the collection of spare parts at its central warehouse in Azuqueca de Henares, near Madrid, managing the consolidation, shipping and distribution to all the Mercedes-Benz Group dealers in these areas.
Under the three-year agreement, Ceva will ship 2,000 orders, via its less-than-container load (LCL) Oceanfreight service, enabling Mercedes-Benz to achieve a balance between operational costs and delivery times.
"Logistics is a critical aspect for every automotive company," noted Andrés Orejón Fraile, spare parts director of Mercedes-Benz Spain. "Cost reductions, improvements in delivery times and shipment frequency are key factors for the success of our Customer Service Policy. Only a capable provider that is able to satisfy our expectations in terms of time and cost can have our confidence."
Mercedes-Benz is one of Ceva's Century customers, a group of approximately 100 top global customers, which represent major opportunities for growth across several geographies. Ceva supports the company's business across Europe, including in Italy, Germany and the UK, as well as Mexico and Australia.
In other news, Ceva has launched a multi-user vehicle logistics centre in the Philippines within the customs bonded area at the port of Batangas.
The facility provides two hectares of storage space for vehicles and 4,100 square metre PDI facility that can process approximately 160 to 200 vehicles each day.
Ceva is applying its Matrix-based vehicle management system to provide complete visibility of vehicle movement which uses iPhones and iPads to substantially reduce the number of man hours it takes to process an order, as well as providing reports on quality defects, saving cost, time and paperwork. The Matrix VMS integrates components from individual software vendors, which the company said provides deliver services that give customers the benefits of commercial packaged software coupled with bespoke solutions.
The facility was launched with a ceremony and ribbon cutting by Ceva's senior executives and Ford Group Philippines vice president for Finance, Karthik Swaminath. The opening ceremony was also attended by more than 120 guests, including local government officials and representatives from Bureau of Customs, Philippines Ports Authority and Asian Terminals, local dignitaries and ambassadors, as well as a number of Ceva's other customers.
"We are extremely excited about this new vehicle logistic centre," said Inna Kuznetsova, Ceva's chief commercial officer who officiated at the opening event. "This centre will play a strategic role in addressing issues of congestion, speed and security in the growing market for imported finished vehicles in the Philippines."
Karthik Swaminath, Ford's vice president for Finance commented: "We congratulate CEVA on the launch of this new state-of-the-art vehicle logistics centre. As a valued partner, we look forward to working together with Ceva as we continue to aggressively grow our business and bring more class-leading One Ford vehicles to the Philippines."
Learn more about Inna Kuznetsova in the In Profile section of the forthcoming edition of Automotive Logistics magazine.
