As Tata pulls out the stops to find new efficiencies for the future of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), DHL Supply Chain, the carmaker’s lead logistics provider, has been doing its bit with the provision of a new pan-European, inbound collection strategy.
Using its freight control tower in Veghel, Holland, the LLP is using a combination of full truck loads, milk round collections and groupage from other supply chain service providers and organising them on behalf of JLR to deliver more than 980 full and partial-loads every week to the carmaker’s sites in Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Halewood.
The company is now organising those deliveries with collections from 500 automotive component suppliers in 17 countries. It is one of the largest in-bound collection services in the UK and follows the successful implementation of a UK-based parts collection service for the carmaker in August 2008. In recognition JLR awarded DHL its first Quality Award for Best Business Process Quality Improvement Project in March this year (read more here).
DHL has already reported improvements in supply chain efficiency of over 10%, with further enhancements planned over the next few months.
Optimism is growing again for the future of JLR following discussions between Tata and the UK Government that may result in a loan agreement as early as this week, meaning workers could return from the annual two week shutdown at the beginning of next week to a more secure company.
According to industry reports, the UK Government has removed deal-breaking conditions from the 10-month-old negotiations including the demand for a government seat on the JLR board and a veto on redundancies. This follows a strengthening in the finances of the Indian conglomerate, in part helped by the sales of the Nano.
Last month also saw the launch of sales of the Jaguar and Land Rover range through the brands’ flagship store in Mumbai, which are reported to be doing well.
India is also somewhere that DHL is helping to promote greater logistics efficiency following the conference it organised in Pune last month. Through workshops held as part of the conference, which involved automotive experts from DHL and those in the wider industry, the company identified customer demands organised in four main areas: inbound to manufacturing; international supply chain, aftermarket services and other areas which included consultancy projects, pure warehousing and 4PLs for finished vehicle distribution.
Deepa George, a spokesperson for DHL India, told Automotive Logistics: “The revolution going on in the Indian automotive market means that new or more efficient logistics solutions are required on all the automotive supply chains in order to allow that revolution to actually happen.
“DHL as a whole has excellent systems and connectivity with the customs in India and consider this a differentiator for our automotive clients. This coupled with our airport facilities means that we can execute the necessary processes on a best in class basis.”
Meanwhile, in China, DHL Supply Chain has opened a 3,080m2 transportation hub in Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei Province. The new 24-hour hub is located in the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone following last month's launch of a road distribution hub there.
The company plans to add 10 transport hubs in China by the end of the year to meet the demands of the domestic market. Last month it opened a new regional hub in Shanghai as part of its $25m programme to strengthen its expertise in road transport and distribution in China.
DHL operates four other regional hubs and fifteen sub-regional hubs in mainland China.
