Inbound supply chain of after sales parts from local suppliers to the National Parts Distribution Centre and the new Toyota warehouse lead times and cross-docking

Abstract

Toyota South Africa Motors has recently opened their new National Parts Distribution Centre. A new warehouse brings with it new technology, new tools and techniques. Toyota has its own way of managing its businesses around the globe. This way is called The Toyota Way. By applying innovative engineering techniques and also implementing Toyota standards, the goal of this project will be to eliminate unnecessary expenses and to reduce lead time from the suppliers to the warehouse and to the dealers. This project uses BOSAL, a supplier of Toyota accessories, as an experiment to cross-dock parts that are too big to store in this new warehouse. The outcome of this experiment will determine if it is possible to do the same with the supplier of MAXE products, also a dealer of Toyota accessories. MAXE is currently delivering their products to the dealers themselves. The main problem when a supplier delivers their own parts directly to the dealers, is that Toyota has absolutely no control over the deliveries and the lead times. The main focus of this project is to determine an accurate lead time to each dealer of all parts and then to optimize the current cross-docking operation of BOSAL products. Implementing the Just in Time (JIT) supply chain method in the cross-docking operation will also form a key part of the changes.