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Dive Brief:
- Standard Motor Products opened a 575,000-square-foot national distribution center in Shawnee, Kansas, significantly expanding the company’s supply chain footprint, according to a June 19 press release.
- The new site features automation technology and is expected to lower transportation costs, transforming how fast-moving products, such as SMP’s vehicle control lineup, originate and arrive to West Coast customers, the company noted previously on an August 2023 earnings call.
- At the end of the year, SMP will close its Edwardsville, Kansas, center, located less than five miles from the Shawnee facility, but retain the site’s workers and management team, per the release.
Dive Insight:
SMP is one of the various auto parts makers and sellers revamping their supply chains to optimize efficiency. For example, electric vehicle manufacturer Stellantis plans to open an auto parts “Megahub” in Detroit by 2027, while Advance Auto Parts has been pushing to unify its distribution network.
The Shawnee facility will expand SMP’s distribution network for aftermarket car parts by more than 200,000 square feet to 1.4 million, per the earnings call. The site will enable the company to fulfill customer orders within three days and ship thousands of emergency orders daily.
The new site also marks SMP’s move from a single-point distribution model for high-volume fast-moving SKUs to a multi-point model, per the earnings call.
The facility “will expand our capacity, improve turnaround times and provide automation efficiencies for our customers, ensuring our supply chain efforts keep pace with their growing demand,” CEO Eric Sills said in the release.
