Honda Europe is building a 20,000m2 distribution centre in Pniewy, near Poznañ in Poland, to increase its service level for spare parts deliveries to Poland, the Baltic states and the western region of Germany.
The €10.7m facility, which is due to open in April 2010, is expected to handle about 140,000 lines of spare parts on a monthly basis within the next three years according to Noë Denecker, Director, Honda Europe NV. It will hold a stock of 23,000 items.
The new centre is part of a streamlining of operations across the company’s seven existing logistics centres in the region. The company’s Frankfurt hub will now close and the German market will be split into three parts with western Germany served from the master depot in Ghent, Belgium, north-east Germany from the new Polish hub and south-east Germany from the Honda’s logistics centre in Vienna, Austria.
The Baltic markets served by the new centre – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania –are expected to grow in the next couple of years, generating triple the volume of spare parts (from 100,000 lines currently to 300,000 lines), said Denecker.
“Replenishment will occur from the master depot in Belgium as is currently the case for the seven centres in Europe,” Denecker told Automotive Logistics. “We foresee that on a daily basis about four trucks will be dispatched from the Belgian master depot to the Polish hub. About three trucks a day will leave the Poznan centre to serve Poland.”
As yet Honda has not established which LSPs it will be working with. “Currently we haven’t decided anything on working with local logistics service providers, but we have a policy to at least outsource the transport activities, said Denecker. “The remaining is subject to economic and business pragmatism. The establishment of the new logistics centre is still in a project phase and many details still need to be developed.”
The new facility is located 50km west of Poznañ, close to major East-West transport routes connecting Moscow and Berlin via Warsaw. It will create 38 new jobs with recruitment mainly coming from Pniewy.
In other news, Honda in the UK has renewed its logistics contract with Howard Tenens for aftermarket parts distribution.
The ten-year relationship between the two companies will now be extended for a further five. Tenens distributes throughout the UK and Northern Ireland to more than 200 dealerships.
Distribution is organised from Tenens’ facility at South Marston Park, Swindon, which provides support for several other automotive businesses in the UK.
