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From Complex SKUs to Efficient Fulfillment: How Did Toyota Shorten Its Spare Parts Supply Cycle?
Complexity Comes From Accurate Fulfillment of 45,000 SKUs
As a core hub in Toyota’s East China service supply chain, the Changshu spare parts warehouse supports parts supply for hundreds of dealers.
As vehicle ownership continues to grow, spare parts need to be found, picked, and delivered faster. This directly affects dealer service response and customer satisfaction.
However, the warehouse faced a large SKU volume and complex material types. Toyota needed a smarter warehouse upgrade to shorten the overall supply cycle. Based on this need, Toyota worked with DELIECN to upgrade its spare parts warehouse.
✓ Refined zone-based management for nearly 45,000 automotive spare parts SKUs;
✓ Supply cycle shortened from 8 days to 2 days;
✓ Full-process traceability across storage, picking, handling, and outbound operations, with 99.9% accuracy.
Many SKUs were mixed in storage. Orders were scattered. Manual searching was slow.
Material sizes varied greatly. Different materials had different turnover rhythms.
Small and large parts were often mixed in the same order. Cross-zone handling was difficult and could slow down the process.
Multiple zones, devices, and order types ran at the same time. The customer needed more refined operation management.
From Decentralized Management to Efficient Multi-Zone Coordination
1）Dense Storage for Large Parts: Scientific Multi-Zone Planning
The Toyota warehouse has H1200 mm and H1675 mm storage cages. It also handles long parts, irregular parts, and low-frequency spare parts in sizes such as 1100×1130×1165 / 1675 mm and 1400×2200×1675 mm. These materials have different turnover frequencies.
For storage cage materials that require dense storage and high throughput, Toyota deployed DELIECN 125 mm ultra-thin pallet four-way Shuttle Robots. This design helps release more vertical storage space. Fourteen pallet four-way Shuttle Robots work with layer-changing equipment. Together, they achieve 90 lines/hour for large spare parts of different specifications.
For long and large parts that still require flexible forklift operation, Toyota uses narrow-aisle racking. This helps concentrate forklift travel paths and improve high-bay space utilization. For irregular parts, low-frequency parts, or spare parts that are not suitable for automated dense storage, Mezzanine Racking is used for layered storage.
2）Efficient Picking for Small Parts: From “Person-to-Goods” to “Goods-to-Person”
The pressure in the small parts area comes from many SKUs, fragmented orders, and high picking frequency.
In manual picking, workers need to search, check, and pick items across thousands of storage locations. One worker may walk up to 30,000 steps per day. A large amount of time is spent on searching paths. As the number of SKUs grows, labor intensity also increases. The risks of wrong picking and missed picking also rise.
Therefore, Toyota chose DELIECN Mini-FlyBox. It provides more than 17,000 tote locations. It supports organized mixed storage for 600×800×300 mm and 600×800×450 mm totes.
Eighteen Mini-FlyBox units run in 1100 mm ultra-narrow aisles. They work together with 54 Tote AMRs. The total inbound and outbound throughput reaches 870 lines/hour. This makes multi-SKU and fragmented order processing more efficient and accurate.
3）Cross-Zone Handling: 54 Tote AMRs and 24 AGVs Working Together
Automotive spare parts orders may include small parts, large parts, irregular parts, or other spare parts at the same time. These items need to be picked and gathered from different zones.
If each zone relies on manual transfer, waiting, missed shipments, wrong shipments, or repeated handling may occur during peak hours. This can affect order fulfillment.
The goal of cross-zone handling is to help different materials in the same order move smoothly to later sorting and outbound nodes.If each zone relies on manual transfer, waiting, missed shipments, wrong shipments, or repeated handling may occur during peak hours. This can affect order fulfillment.
Toyota deployed 54 Tote AMRs and 24 AGVs. Tote AMRs handle totes, small parts orders, and flexible transport tasks. AGVs handle heavier loads and cross-zone transport tasks. The two types of equipment have clear roles. They reduce manual cross-zone handling and waiting time. They also make material flow between zones more continuous and stable.
4）Data Visualization and Leaner Management
In this project, Toyota’s TOPSS sales system and upstream WMS are connected with DELIECN WMS. Business needs are turned into executable warehouse tasks.
The WMS manages inventory, storage locations, inbound and outbound processes, and order tasks. It also uses data such as inbound and outbound frequency, inventory turnover, and task changes. This provides data support for resource planning, zone optimization, and operation improvement.
The WCS sends tasks to field equipment. It coordinates pallet four-way Shuttle Robots, Mini-FlyBox, Tote AMRs, AGVs, and conveyors based on task priority, equipment status, and path conditions. The WCS also supports equipment status monitoring and preventive maintenance management. This improves the stability of warehouse operations.
The 3D Visualized Central Control System can simulate and recreate the warehouse operation scene. Through the LED large screen, it visualizes data from the WMS, WCS, and field equipment systems. Toyota managers can view zone layout, material flow, task progress, inventory status, equipment operation, and abnormal alerts on one screen. This helps them make more informed decisions.
Customer Feedback
From promoting the “production and packaging near-site, packaging and storage integration” upgrade to the full operation of the smart warehouse today, DELIECN multi-area product solution has helped us shorten the supply chain process by 80%. The supply cycle has also been reduced from 8 days to 2 days. This is very important for improving spare parts response, supporting dealer delivery, and keeping the supply chain stable.
The modernizing of Toyota’s Spare Parts Logistics Center sets a new benchmark for multi-SKU mixed-storage environments.
Facing similar operational bottlenecks? Reach out to the DELIECN team to explore tailored automation solutions designed for your specific facility.
