automotive
make their component supply chains even ‘leaner’. “I think it is more the case that there has recently been
a lot of instability in automotive supply chains. During the downturn, no one knew what was happening from day to day and as a result, inventory policy became very unstable. One major reason for that was that a lot of suppliers were very nervous about supplying to manufacturers which might not be able to pay them,” Cullen suggested. He went on: “Then, the bounce-back by the automotive
industry saw the need to reintroduce capacity really quite quickly, both in terms of actually commissioning production lines and putting in place ‘work in progress’ inventory. As a result, components have been moving in a sort of emergency situation – and that is typically the main driver of automotive industry demand for air freight.” Roland Bischoff (right), senior
TNT Express, the Netherlands-based worldwide express operator, is planning to start ramping up its automotive sector air and surface logistics operations in Asia over the next year. Darryll Cooke, the company’s global
industry director automotive, said he planned to visit the region in September “specifically to look at automotive in Asia”. “It is a market we have to date not really tackled with any great gusto but it is on the radar screen for next year,” he stated. “We will be looking at Chinese domestic,
intra-Asian and Asian intercontinental automotive business. As in Europe, in Asia we will look to use both our air and ground networks, including our road network in China, to handle automotive traffic.” As part of those plans, added Cooke, TNT
is also planning to establish an information control centre, or ‘tower’ to use the modern term, for its Asian automotive business. “We have been developing a network of automotive control towers since the late 1980s to manage the information flow from order to delivery and now have them in Europe, the US, Brazil, South Africa and India,” said Cooke. “At the moment there is a gap in Asia Pacific but that is going to be addressed in the latter part of this year and early next – and our efforts will be primarily focused on China.”
20 AIR LOGISTICSCHINA
vice president global air freight for multinational forwarder Kuehne + Nagel, made a similar point. “Our automotive air freight business was really up in the first quarter of this year and that continued in the second quarter. Everyone was caught with their pants down when automotive production picked up. The business was all just-in-time,” he said. “At the moment, automotive manufacturers are still
keen to use air freight to keep their production lines going. Longer term, I think the global demand for air freight to move automotive components will continue but maybe not at current levels.”
REGIONAL SUPPLY CHAIN Darryll Cooke, global industry director automotive for TNT Express, which primarily handles intra-European automotive component movements but is planning to expand its presence in the Asian automotive market over the next year (see panel), agreed. “Generally, the sourcing of components in the
automotive industry is a regional supply chain operation,” he said. “So, where there is currently substantial use of air freight to move automotive components from Asia to Europe, it is probably largely a temporary situation rather than part of a long-term trend.” However, Stan Wraight (right),
managing partner of Strategic Aviation Solutions International (SASI), a Hong Kong-based worldwide air cargo consultancy, takes a different stance. He argues that the increased European automotive sector sourcing of components from Asia, for example, is more down to structural changes in global automotive production than problems securing supplies in Europe. “Look at what has been happening in China.
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