BMW has awarded Kuehne + Nagel a three year contract to fully manage its South African Parts and Accessories Distribution Centre in Midrand, Johannesburg.
The decision to award the full contract builds on partial management of the BMW-owned and operated facility, which the company undertook at the end of 2008.
Kuehne + Nagel will now manage the entire national parts distribution centre serving the whole of South Africa and five neighbouring countries. The company will handle receiving, inventory control, picking and packing as well as value-added services including pre-packaging and returns handling of parts and accessories. The 16,500m2 facility holds approximately 50,000 stock keeping units.
Kuehne + Nagel will also work with BMW on continuous improvements to the supply chain process.
This most recent agreement with BMW follows another three-year contract awarded in October for spare parts distribution in Japan at an 18,000m2 facility located at Narita City (60km east of Tokyo). Here Kuehne + Nagel handles 1.2m parts delivered to outlets, including BMW, MINI and BMW Motorcycle, on a weekly basis (read more here).
BMW has also recently invested €200m ($295m) in the expansion of its Rosslyn plant in South Africa increasing production capacity in the long term from 60,000 to 87,000 units a year.
