Adrian Mardell, chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, has said “we do have to apologise” after a parts logistics crisis has left almost 5,000 of its customers’ cars still stuck at JLR dealerships awaiting repairs.
JLR has downsized its UK parts supply network from 18 warehouses to at least one ‘super-centre’, the Mercia Park complex in Leicestershire, operated by its logistics partner Unipart Logistics.
But because the “transition” began at first of Q4 there was a crisis in supplies of parts for Jaguar and Land Rover dealerships and authorised repairers, resulting in cars being parked up awaiting parts and the JLR network ran out of loan cars for affected customers.
This crisis comes just months after JLR announced plans for its Jaguar, Defender, Range Rover and Discovery nameplates to develop into a ‘House of Brands’, with Jaguar and Range Rover delivering the best standards of shopping for and ownership experience befitting consumers of luxury goods.
JLR says the situation is improving, but it surely is unlikely to be fully resolved until early 2024. There continues to be a backlog of parts orders.
“It was a planned transition however the transition is taking longer than we might originally have planned,” Mardell told journalists at JLR’s financial update, “and, simply to be clear, that’s something that no person wished for, and that’s something that, as an organisation with our partner we’re working with here, we obviously have responsibility for the change.”
The delays are something “we do have to apologise for”, he said.
“To be very, very clear, that is something we’re really unhappy about,” he said.
The situation is being tackled at the best level of JLR and Unipart Logistics and Mardell said he’s in regular communication with Unipart, because “this is correct at the highest of the escalation for resolving what we’d like to do here”.
This Article First Appeared At www.am-online.com
