Automotive Fleet

OCT 2013

Magazine for the car and truck fleet and leasing industry

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units awaiting shipment have been held at the body upftter due to limited space at the assembly plants," said Freund. Compounding the problems at the upftters was the limited number of transportation haulers available to return upftted vehicles to the OEM distribution system. "All of the manufacturers experienced logjams at the upftters. Limited numbers of transportation haulers, railcars, or truck carriers limited the number of vehicles that could be returned to the transportation hubs. All manufacturers monitor the volumes to best control the fow of large upft ordering clients or during the heavy spring order cycles that challenge the logistics system. Tis year, upftter logjams seemed to be less of an issue," said Tangney of Emkay. Another OTD problem resulted from parts shortages experienced by upftters. Tis observation was voiced by GE Capital Fleet Services. "Ship-thru vehicles, such as upft and decals, had longer lead times as upftters experienced delays with parts and graphics," said Groth. "Certain models with shipthru upftting experienced parts challenges where their build time hinges on parts built abroad. Te shipping time is continually monitored to better align part and vehicle arrival timing and keep cycle time in control." However, despite upftter plant shutdowns, there was minimal disruption due to efective communication with the industry. "We feel the planned three-week shutdown of the Leggett & Platt plant in July for inventory and scheduled maintenance was an event that had minimal impact because of the company's thorough preparation," said McHugh of ARI. FMCs are using specifc target production weeks to maintain a steady stream of vehicles to upftters and avoid creating bottlenecks. "On high-volume orders, Donlen works with the upftters to determine the number of vehicles they can handle on a weekly basis. Tis allows us to request specifc target production weeks (TPW) from the manufacturer when orders are submitted. Tis planning avoids a surplus of vehicles arriving at the upftter. However, in some situations, the upftter has a backlog, and, in these cases, they are unable to meet our order-to-delivery expectation. We also experience issues when the manufacturer of a service body is unable to produce the body in a timely manner, which results in vehicles sitting at an upftter until the parts have arrived," said Gomez of Donlen. AF ® New Quick Check process locates repair needs in less than 3 minutes! top 10 most improved -26 DAYS www.hunter.com/qc OCTOBER 2013 I AUTOMOTIVE FLEET 25

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