A new parts initiative being piloted by 12 BMW dealers in London and the south-east is expected to boost parts stock turnover from 12 times per year to 20-25 times per year.

BMW is also confident that it will reduce dealers’ parts stock holdings by more than half.

The programme, based around increasing deliveries from one to three times a day, has been piloted for almost a year and is expected to be rolled out next year with the metropolitan areas the priority.

BMW’s central parts warehouse will serve local warehouses which will be either BMW owned or subcontracted. It has held off launching the programme nationwide until it has built up capacity at the main distribution centre.

Instead of next-day delivery, the pilot dealers now receive parts on the same day of order. Parts sales have risen as a result.

Steve Nash, BMW UK aftersales director, said: “They are selling more parts because they can get them much more quickly which makes the customer happy. We are also encouraging dealers to do pre-inspections on the car to improve first time fix.”

BMW is using grocery supermarkets like Tesco as its benchmark.

“Every new car launch means around 6,000 new parts and as we increase our model ranges there is more pressure on the dealer’s parts department,” said Nash. “This scheme will help to alleviate that.”