Fixed Ops Journal - October 2019 - F28

FIXED OPS JOURNAL

PARTS PLACE

GM's new processing center designed
to get service parts to dealership faster

RICHARD TRUETT
rtruett@crain.com

URTON, Mich. - General Motors aims to increase the speed
and efficiency with which it delivers service parts to technicians and body shops at its 4,100 North American dealerships.
So it has opened a huge parts processing
center that is three times the size of the facility it replaced.
The first shipment of parts left the 1.1-millionsquare-foot center on 141 acres near Flint, Mich., in
late June, almost exactly a year after excavators removed the first shovel of dirt. GM says the center's
800 employees will be able to work more efficiently
packing and shipping parts not just for the automaker's own brands, but also for competitive makes Turvey: Improve
of vehicles that GM dealers often service.
the fill rate.
"A big part of that equation is getting high-quality
parts into the hands of trained service technicians when and where
they need them," said Tim Turvey, GM's vice president of customer care
and aftersales, during the official opening of the center in August.

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OCTOBER 2019

GM's new plant, top and bottom, will handle as many as 120 million
service parts a year. The $65 million facility is GM's biggest U.S.
warehouse investment in almost 40 years.

The UAW's strike against GM disrupted activities at the new distribution center, contributing to parts shortages at many dealerships. That
lack of parts delayed warranty work and customer-pay repairs and
curbed parts sales, according to dealership fixed operations directors,
reducing fixed ops profits and customer satisfaction. In response, some
GM dealerships sought to obtain repair parts and loaner vehicles for
service customers from other providers.
Turvey told Fixed Ops Journal that the new parts plant, at full operation, will help GM improve its fill rate, a measurement of the parts that
automakers have on hand and can ship to dealers immediately, without
back orders or other delays. Fill rate is a key metric of the efficiency of
parts operations.
Under GM's parts distribution system, the facility usually won't ship
components directly to dealerships. Instead, the parts that leave the
center will go first to what GM calls "facing parts distribution centers"
- 12 regional facilities that serve dealerships in their local markets. But
in isolated instances, Turvey noted, if a dealership needs a part that one
of the regional centers can't supply, the Burton facility will ship it directly.
GM spent $65 million to build the parts processing center, which has
84 shipping and receiving docks, compared with 35 in the facility it replaced. The center is expected to handle 120 million parts each year,
represented by about 147,000 part numbers. 

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Fixed Ops Journal - October 2019

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