Toyota SA Motors (TSAM) has completed a R356m expansion of its parts warehouse in Boksburg, putting the company on the map as a regional hub for the global giant’s parts distribution in Africa.
At 80,000m2, roughly the size of 11 football fields, it is the largest automotive warehouse in the southern hemisphere. The original facility was built in 2012, and has been doubled in size to serve as one of Toyota’s five global parts hubs.
Renamed the Toyota Africa Parts Centre (formerly the Toyota SA Parts Distribution Centre), it has expanded its operations to supply parts and accessories to Toyota, Lexus and Hino dealers in SA, to include dealers in 36 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and six markets outside the region.
The huge warehouse holds 2.7-million pieces of stock worth R900m at any given time, supplies 277 dealers and employs 433 workers.
Speaking at its official opening on Thursday, Leon Theron, Toyota’s senior vice-president of sales and marketing, said Toyota services 1.4-million cars a year in SA, and parts supply is a key element of customer satisfaction.
He said the facility was also expanded to cater for Toyota’s projected growth in vehicle sales, with the brand aiming to increase its share of SA’s small-car market to 25% by 2025 with the addition of new models.
Anand Pather, TSAM customer services vice-president, said the warehouse delivers 10,000 parcels a day and boasts a 98% on-time delivery record.
“Another interesting fact is that we have 220 local parts suppliers. We ship roughly 22,000 order lines to our dealer network (including Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini/BLNE) and 3,500 order lines to our export customers,” said Pather.
The company plans to eventually take the facility off the electricity grid and power it with solar energy and batteries.
The warehouse expansion forms part of a R4.28bn investment in local vehicle assembly and parts supply announced by TSAM in January 2020.
The lion’s share went towards production of the Toyota Corolla Cross range from October 2021 at the Prospecton plant in KwaZulu-Natal.
The water-damaged plant is ramping up production again after being temporarily shut down in April during the flooding that afflicted the province.
The shutdown has caused long waiting lists for locally produced models such as the Corolla Cross, Corolla Quest, Fortuner, Hilux and Hiace, but Andrew Kirby, president and CEO of TSAM, said the factory should be fully operational again by September.
TSAM has boosted the SA economy with more than R12bn in manufacturing facilities, equipment updates and dealer operations in the past decade.
The latest investment includes a R454m enhancement to the local production of the Hiace Ses’fikile minibus, with a further R91m earmarked for increasing output of taxis from 14,000 to 18,000 units a year.
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