Like a scene from The Karate Kid, a wooden sign bearing the word "dojo" is written overhead in Japanese and English as you walk into the training room at Al-Futtaim's huge warehouse for Toyota car parts.
Typically associated with the training of martial arts students, this particular "dojo", Japanese for "place of the way", sees little in the way of fighting. It is instead used as a training ground to get recruits up to speed on how to handle the 13,000 car parts that come through this Dubai centre every day.
The dojo here "is essentially a simulation tool on how to manage the shop floor", explains Shamu Bhagchandani, the manager of the parts distribution centre. "When the new recruits come in they are put in the dojo for half a day and they are then mentored by an associate worker for two to three days."
Workers at the centre handle hundreds of thousands of car parts each year that are shipped from Toyota suppliers from around the world and then distributed to consumers, government departments, car rental companies and workshops across the Emirates.
The parts centre is the mother ship that feeds all Toyotas on the UAE's roads.
Toyota accounts for about 40 per cent of new cars sold in the Emirates, making it the market leader, and as the exclusive importer of the Japanese cars, Al-Futtaim has invested huge sums of money in ensuring an efficient parts supply operation.
The Emirates's unforgiving climate of heat and dust means cars are serviced more often than elsewhere and at a higher cost, making the after-sales market a bigger revenue earner than in other parts of the world.
Toyota recommends a service in the UAE after 5,000km, compared with 15,000km in Britain or the US.
"Cars are subjected to such harsh conditions here," says Kevin Jones, the senior general manager for after-sales at Al-Futtaim. "Because people need the air conditioning all the time, the engine never turns off, which takes its toll."
When you walk around the 1.25-hectare centre, the most noticeable aspects are the hundreds of shelves of car parts and how clean the warehouse appears. The temperature is kept at a comfortable 28°C at all times.
The centre has more than 75,000 different types of parts in stock for all Toyota vehicles such as the Land Cruiser, Camry, Fortuner and Yaris.
Built in 2007 opposite the new Dubai World Central International Airportat a cost of Dh160 million (US$43.5m), the centre holds about Dh200m of stock.
If you own a Toyota and have had parts fitted, they will almost certainly have come from this centre.
Standard services account for about 60 per cent of the stock - oil filters, brake pads and clutch covers, for example.
More than 200 staff of varying nationalities work around the clock to see parts are sorted and delivered to branch warehouses and authorised Toyota dealers around the country.
Supply has been hit by the Japanese earthquake, but not dramatically, Mr Bhagchandani says.
"We have machines and our delivery vehicles continuously running, going from morning until night, so that the deliveries take place in the early morning," he adds. "We can get any of our parts to branches and dealers within two to three hours."
Al-Futtaim has 12 parts branches supporting customers from Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, to Ras al Khaimah and Dhaid.
As soon as a customer makes an order, a nationwide programme and barcode system enables the parts to be delivered and their replacements ordered from Japan or another supplier country. On average just 8 out of 10,000 parts are unaccounted for.
"Over the years, it has happened that customers have become smarter and they do not want to keep stocks when they are available here," says Mr Bhagchandani. "At one time customers and our branches would keep eight months' stock, now they keep 15 days or less."
Al-Futtaim's biggest customers are individual parts dealers, with a large majority based in Ajman and Sharjah. All 125 dealers across the country are authorised to sell Toyota stock.
"They apply and we go and look at their premises and assess what they can do to service our customers and we have a contract that says they will only sell genuine parts," says Mr Jones. "If they are caught selling fake parts and they are an authorised dealer then that's it, never again will they be authorised for us."
As Toyota is a large car supplier to the police, the parts centre also sells a proportion of its stock to the Government. Many car rental companies use Toyota and so supplies also go to these companies.
Consumers usually buy direct from dealers or through the workshops. "[But] if a customer walks into a branch at 6pm and places the order and it is out stock, they can come tomorrow at 8am and have the part - at any branch in the UAE," says Mr Bhagchandani.
