MAN expands in SA

MAN Automotive South Africa has steadily increased its sales and market share over the past few years and, as such, is now making some key changes to its operations to cater for the increased demand. MAN’s expansion of assembly operations has grown by approximately 50 percent since to 2016.

From April 1, the company’s Pinetown assembly plant will cater for end-of-line pre-delivery inspection checks, which are normally done at the various dealer points around the country. This means that MAN is able to offer ready-to-go solutions, from a centralised point – enabling improved consistency in quality and uniformity of standards.

“Having a central point also enables MAN customers to make collections of their transport solutions from the assembly plant, in alignment with MAN globally. MAN’s ProfiDrive driver training will also be provided as a standard service to these customers,” comments Markus Geyer, MD MAN Automotive South Africa.

An enabler to this move is the use of the MAN branch facility adjacent to the Pinetown plant. In support of the network optimisation strategy (which is taking place simultaneously) there will be no normal MAN retail operations from this site after April 1.

“We are confident that the remaining six dealers within KwaZulu-Natal will continue to offer customers a variety of options to support their operations without any compromise to service levels,” Geyer comments.

“MAN will also open a wholly owned operation in Port Elizabeth, which has always been an important location on the Garden Route to offer support to our clients. Previously operated as a private capital location, MAN decided that it was the right time to reinforce its footprint by setting up this wholly owned location,” Geyer concludes.