AGCO, Your Agriculture Company, a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment, celebrated the opening of its African Master Parts Distribution Center together with its local distribution partners in Johannesburg this week. "AGCO’s new state-of-the-art warehouse will allow us to better serve our customers in Sub-Saharan Africa with high quality products and services,” said Martin Richenhagen, Chairman, President and CEO of AGCO. The construction of AGCO’s African Master Parts Distribution Centre was completed at the end of 2012. The new warehouse comprises initial space of more than 7,000 square meters with flexibility to expand within a 16,000 square meters site. The strategic location of the African Master Parts Distribution Centre, close to Johannesburg Airport, makes it easily accessible, and puts it at the heart of a well-connected logistics network.

“Our new Master Parts Distribution Centre is a significant step to improve our after-sales services in African markets,” explained Nuradin Osman, AGCO Director for Africa & Middle East, “Overall AGCO is investing about $35 million in the after-sales service infrastructure in Africa to ensure excellent parts availability and machine uptime.” Up to 40,000 parts are stocked to significantly improve response times and reduce machine downtime. AGCO’s objective is to bring Africa’s after-sales service for the local distribution partners and customers in line with the highest global standards. “Having successfully established the new African Master warehouse, we will now focus on developing satellite warehouses in East and West Africa to support these growing markets,” added Nuradin Osman.

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The African Master Parts Distribution Centre will not only support AGCO’s Sub-Saharan distribution partners, but also parts shipments to the dealer network of Barloworld, AGCO’s Southern Africa distributor. The joint approach will allow Barloworld to offer improved service to its customers due to the expanded range of locally stocked parts.
In addition to the implementation of the new Master Parts Distribution Centre in Johannesburg, AGCO has taken further strategic steps to expand its presence in Africa - opening a Global Learning Center and Future Farm in Zambia that allows local farmers and dealers to be trained on modern farming technology. Farmers can benefit from a wide range of training classes and get access to professional farming equipment. Moreover, in December 2012, AGCO established a joint venture operation with local partners in Algeria to manufacture Massey Ferguson tractors for the African market.