Asked if the heightened competition with FedEx, DHL, TNT and others in China has led to a race for prime sites, Hundelt says, "There are a number of opportunities. It's not a situation where four of us are bidding on the same piece of land and driving the price up." He adds that the government "does a decent job of slicing out land" near ports and airports for such development, and there's no need to fight for the corner lot in any case when the project at hand is a distribution. He adds that his division's infrastructure needs have been met adequately.
      But Hundelt reiterates that the site selection process of UPS SCS is driven most of all by the package side in the Asia-Pacific region. "We're following as logistics support — they're the lead dog," he says. His team is composed of professionals from logistics, transportation, engineering, operations, finance and accounting and other areas.
      Ell says the industries that UPS SCS is looking to support in the region include automotive/industrial, healthcare, consumer goods and high-tech. He sees shifts in product mix, customer base and raw materials sourcing causing parallel shifts in DC networks. Add to those considerations such factors as product lines, product life cycles, SKU proliferation or attrition patterns and the outsourcing option, and the huge opportunity can quickly become a huge headache.
      "We sit with them and find out what's giving them pain," he says of his logistics consultations with customers. "Then we translate that into business rules" that help determine where to locate facilities, or if one is enough. While the range of facilities includes dedicated single-user buildings and cross-docks, there's a clear trend toward more multi-client facilities.
      China is not the be-all and end-all for UPS SCS in Asia. Hundelt says an owned 400,000-sq.-ft. (37,160 sq.-m.) project at an air logistics park in Singapore is key for the company's intra-Asia capability.
      But the Chinese market's primacy was further underscored — as was the primacy of the company's package side — by a survey of Chinese consumers between the ages of 20 and 59 in six Chinese cities.
      "According to the State Department, U.S. exports to China hav grown 80 percent since 2001, but this survey show the Chinese would like even more quality American items," said Kurt Kuehn, UPS senior vice president, worldwide sales and marketing in August. "The spending power of this middle class is exploding. Many American companies view China as a threat rather than an opportunity — they run the risk of missing the China potential and being left behind."