BMW has chosen Ceva Logistics to operate its new regional distribution centre (RDC) in Slubice, Poland (on the border with Germany) with first shipments being made next week. The carmaker said that Ceva had won the contract “because the package was convincing”.
The 15,200-square-metre facility will handle the receipt and warehousing of spare parts and accessories for BMW cars and motorcycles and for MINI. Up to one million of them will be distributed to up to 68 dealers in East Germany every year.
The centre has good access to the E30, the main European route connecting Poland and Germany.
Ceva will initially use BMW’s proprietary warehouse management system (IPS) to process the materials.
The distribution centre was built by Immo Industry Group and meets BMW's present requirements as well as including a 5,900m² extension to cater for anticipated growth in operations in the region. BMW would not confirm what those plans amounted to in detail.
However, coping with growth was far from the carmaker’s thoughts this week as it announced a four-day standstill at its Leipzig plant 250kms across the border from Slubice. BMW said the four-day halt at Leipzig, which makes the 1 Series and 3 Series, would reduce its output this year by 2,800 units.
German automotive paper Automobilwoche reported on Monday that BMW dealers in the country were demanding a 20 per cent cut in their contractual allocation of BMW cars for the months from July to December this year.
Ceva would not comment on whether reduced BMW sales would affect supply from Slubice RDC.
