Every aspect of today’s automotive industry is driven by supply chains organized into highly specific roles. Suppliers are divided into a hierarchy of tiers, each level providing greater value and more complex components and/or assemblies until unitized components and finished automotive systems are delivered in sequence to specific points on OEM production lines just in time for final assembly. Completed vehicles, many custom-ordered, are sold domestically or move across national borders for delivery to dealers or end customers. A sophisticated network for after-market service parts support also is critical to meet growing customer expectations for routine maintenance service as well as warranty performance.

The key player in the modern automotive arena is the logistics management specialist that coordinates collaborative planning as well as the highly synchronized flow of material and information between tier suppliers, production lines, dealer networks and end customers. Long before just-in-time inventory control and manufacturing techniques were embraced by automotive manufacturers in the U.S., Nippon Express USA designed and executed these “kanban” programs for vehicle assembly operations in Japan. Now automotive OEMs the world over have implemented just-in-time production techniques and a multi-tiered supplier network design.

Nippon Express USA today continues its automotive leadership with the following capabilities:

• Expanding its capabilities in the delivery of finished vehicles throughout the world, and especially in Asia where it dedicates entire ships for specific automotive companies’ deliveries to every major market
  
  
• Supporting both the movement of materials and flow of information between tiers of suppliers - many of them in Pacific Asia nations - and key production facilities in the U.S., managing the sequenced delivery of entire components and assemblies on a just-in-time basis to specific points on automotive production lines
  
  
• Developing additional proficiencies in after-market parts support. With its lot identification and tracking and tracing capabilities, Nippon Express USA is positioned to better support the greater quality control emphasis by manufacturers and suppliers. Not only can questionable or deficient lots be identified, isolated and removed from the supply chain, but Nippon Express USA also provides expedited service options such as airfreight to speed replacement parts and/or components to production locations, thereby avoiding interruption of assembly lines