Caterpillar has opened a major spare parts distribution warehouse in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Freezone, saying that it anticipates its spare parts business in the wider region to grow by 40-50% over the next three years.
The facility, with an under-roof area of 47,030 m², was opened by Stu Levenick, Caterpillar group president with responsibility for customer and dealer support, and Her Excellency Salma Ali Saif Bin Hareb, CEO of Economic Zones World and Jafza.
It will supply parts to markets in the Middle East and Africa. Major Caterpillar dealers at the opening included Mohamed Abdulrahman Al-Bahar, Zahid Tractor, and Mantrac.
The 11-hectare site will house 96,000 spare parts in 2013, and dealers at the event said that customers will see an appreciable improvement in the availability and speed in which spare parts orders are able to be filled, especially for less common parts.
In many cases, this will see order times on emergency parts reduced from three days or longer, to a single day. Previously, most dealer spare parts inventory and emergency parts were air-freighted from a distribution centre in Grimbergen, Belgium.
The distribution centre is only one of eight outside North America, and is part of Caterpillar’s plan to enhance its global parts distribution network, conceived eight years ago. Construction is also underway on centres in Queensland, Australia, and San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
Read the full story in the April edition of PMV Middle East.
