Spare parts required to repair and service locally-sold BMW and Mini vehicles are being delayed by up to six weeks following a parts management system change in Germany.
BMW and Mini Australia product communications manager Scott Croaker confirmed to CarAdvice that the issue is the result of BMW Germany swapping over its central parts management system to a new program called ATLAS (Advanced parTs Logistics in After Sales).
“The swap over to [ATLAS] required a shut-down of order processing to migrate the data from the old system to the new,” Croaker said.
“The migration process was conducted in June this year and took approximately one week to complete.”
In preparation for the changeover, 40 intermediate storage sites around the world were given additional stock. Despite this, Croaker says, there was a substantial increase in back order parts lodged with the central distribution warehouse in Dingolfing, Germany, comprising mostly of special order parts that couldn’t be planned for.
“For the dealers and customers, this meant that some of the parts on back order that usually took between one to two weeks to arrive could be delayed by up to six weeks.
“BMW Australia has been supporting our dealer network in ensuring as minimal as possible impact and inconvenience to our customers.”
The Bavarian-based car maker has hired additional staff and has been “working around the clock” to process the backlog of parts orders, which Croaker says has resulted in the backlog of ordered parts being “substantially” reduced.
“We expect to get back to normal levels by the end of quarter three this year,” said Croaker.
Also under the greater BMW umbrella, Rolls-Royce corporate communications manager for Asia Pacific Hal Serudin told CarAdvice there is currently no issue for the luxury brand as far as it is aware.
