Toyota SA expand on parts warehouse now the biggest in Southern Hemisphere
Toyota South Africa’s R365-million expansion of the Atlas Parts Warehouse is now complete. This facility will from now on be known as the Toyota Africa Parts Centre or the TAPC. Here is what you need to know about one of the largest vehicle parts warehouses in the southern hemisphere.
Phase 1 of the warehouse was formally opened in 2012 and became a state-of-the-art distribution centre, boasting a capacity of 40,000m². The addition of Phase 2 has doubled the size of Toyota’s parts depot, turning it into a mega-facility measuring a colossal 80,000m² – which is equivalent to 11 soccer fields. This makes it officially the largest automotive parts warehouse in the Southern Hemisphere.
The warehouse houses roughly 2,700,000 pieces of stock at any given time with a monetary value of R900m. The warehouse currently ships roughly 22,000 order lines to local dealers (including Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini/BLNE) and a further 3500 order lines to the export market.
In addition to ensuring a constant supply of parts to its 277 Toyota, Lexus and Hino dealerships in SA and the surrounding BLNE countries, TAPC has grown into a vital continental hub currently servicing 36 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as a further six international export markets.
TSAM’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Leon Theron adds that TAPC plays a huge role in supporting Toyota’s ambitious sales target in the local market. “Our vehicle sales target for this year is 131 000, and that has a direct impact on this operation (parts supply and distribution). If you look at parts, our sales target is R7.2 billion this year, and we are hoping to service about 1.4 million vehicles this year… Parts play a key role when dealers and customers evaluate us – hence we strive to score excellent scores in DSI as well as in CCE .”
Earlier Theron had thanked all the stakeholders for their respective roles in the expansion of the parts facility: “This marks the culmination of a lot of planning, hard work, dedication and strong support from our business partners, key stakeholders, and of course our team members.”
