Suzuki Auto South Africa (SASA) completed the move to its new, larger head office and warehouse facility in Johannesburg on September 1.
The announcement came shortly after the brand reported 1 213 new-vehicle sales in July, with 1 200 of these sold through its dealer network.
Among the top-performing Suzuki models were the newly introduced S-Presso, which was delivered to 325 customers in July, the Swift (323 new units sold) and the Jimny, with 150 units sold.
The new Suzuki head office and warehouse facility is located in the Linbro Business Park, which gives Suzuki direct access to the N3, N1 and M1 main arteries in and out of Gauteng, and allows for the efficient receipt and distribution of parts.
“We are moving to a new facility to better serve our fast-growing South African customer base,” says SASA sales and marketing divisional manager André Venter.
“Since breaking the 1 000-units-a-month barrier in August 2017, we have broken our own sales record multiple times, necessitating the move to a larger facility that can hold more parts and more efficiently support the larger car parc.”
The new warehouse facility is joined to Suzuki’s new corporate head office and offers 1 600 m2 of floorspace.
This is a 42% increase on the previous warehouse facility, and features a mezzanine level that adds a further 655 m2 of floorspace.
“We have tasked our engineers to design the warehouse for the most efficient storage of parts and components, and so they have increased the rack height by 20% [for] additional storage space. With this extra space, we were able to consolidate all our national warehousing space into this one facility for more efficient and more cost-effective storage,” says Venter.
Suzuki has also increased the size of its receiving area by a third and more than doubled the dispatch area for faster loading and dispatching of parts.
“With the new facility, we are able to dispatch parts orders to dealers every day. We have also introduced an order-and-pick-up service to dealers in Gauteng, which makes the parts available in 24.”