General Motors Aftersales Director addresses Middle East Auto Conference

The conference addressed the latest trends and developments in the Aftermarket Industry, looking at distribution channels and supply chain management, and understanding the Aftermarket consumer mentality. The conference included a case study on Dubai, the hub for the Middle East re-export market, focusing on how Dubai is combating the counterfeit industry.

During the conference, Elenz discussed automotive aftermarket supply chain management, focusing on how to implement a collaborative managed inventory in order to improve stock levels. Other key topics included how to reduce operational costs and achieve better efficiencies for the auto aftermarket industry; ensuring optimum levels of inventory and parts availability with sophisticated inventory systems; and GM's Middle East current practice and inventory systems.

'General Motors believes that Retail Inventory Management (RIM) is the future,' commented Elenz. 'We plan to launch the first RIM pilot in the Middle East in 2007 with the objective of improving off-the-shelf availability to end customers and reducing dealer inventory, as well as decreasing variability throughout the supply chain.'

Retail Inventory Management is a consumption-based automatic parts replenishment system and is similar to those used by major consumer product retailers. It is a web-based collaborative inventory management tool that interfaces with the dealer's existing inventory management system.

Main functions of the system include an automatic proposal when a part number should be added to dealer inventory; calculation of the optimal stocking quantity for parts in stock; automatic replenishment of parts as they are sold; and generation of material returns for inactive parts.

'At General Motors our mission is to ensure that the right part is available at the right time, helping us to satisfy more customers. We also look at how GM can help our dealers to manage parts inventory more efficiently, thus enabling them to increase profitability,' added Elenz.

'We have invested US$63 million in a Middle East Distribution Centre in Jebel Ali to provide up to 24-hour availability of parts to 38 dealer partners in the Middle East and 22 in Africa,' he added. 'This has freed up over US$45 million in working capital in the Middle East alone which allows our dealers to invest in more customer contact points hence improving the entire ownership experience. This is vital to the success of our operations.'

Elenz has been with General Motors for 22 years. His previous role was as Sales and Marketing Manager for General Motors Mexico, until his appointment as Aftersales Director in 2002. He is currently responsible for spare parts sales and marketing; warehousing, supply chain and logistics; service; technical assistance; customer care; and training.