Multi Parts announced its technical center, assembly and distribution facility in Shanghai recently underwent an operation-wide restructuring and expansion. The ISO 9001:2008 certified facility houses Multi Parts’ China engineering, test laboratory, quality control department, light assembly and packaging operation.

Capital improvements include facility expansion to accommodate key additions to the product development engineering and quality control engineering teams. The expansion also houses a restructured supplier relationship management group. Multi Parts’ laboratory also was renovated and expanded and now includes greater capacity and enhanced on-site functional testing capabilities.

Stephen Trance, Multi Parts’ vice president of global manufacturing, said, “Multi Parts has the capability to perform complex testing in a controlled extreme thermal environment chamber. We now monitor rubber quality in shipments through spot testing rubber products to ASTM specifications.”

Multi Parts also has achieved increased throughput capacity and a reduction in lead times for validating new products. The Shanghai facility’s IT infrastructure also has been reinforced and upgraded. Implemented in phases, the completed infrastructure overhaul ensures Multi Parts’ team members in Shanghai and across the globe continue to effectively share information and collaborate, including efficient use of MPSigma. MPSigma is Multi Parts’ proprietary technology supported process to explore, identify, validate and efficiently bring quality products to market.

Brian Cohn, Multi Parts president, commented, “Our company pillars are culture, people, facilities and process. These capital improvements touch each one in substantive ways. They result in Multi Parts being able to better manufacture and deliver our customers quality aftermarket auto parts. Our motivation is simple. Multi Parts never goes backward and we don’t stand still.”