Month: July 2019

GEFCO has just reached its 30-year milestone in providing reusable packaging solutions for major automotive and aerospace manufacturers to transport and deliver components. The Group processes approximately 130,000 containers every day in its 26 reusable packaging management centres across Europe for a green ecosystem of about 2,000 users.

GEFCO’s eco-friendly solutions reduce packaging waste and require fewer trucks on the road, enabling higher truck loading rates as most GEFCO containers are foldable. Furthermore, all broken GEFCO packaging is 100% recycled.

Complete packaging management across the supply chain

In a fast-evolving environment, many manufacturers are convinced of the value of outsourcing packaging management as they refocus on their core businesses. After a leading automotive player paved the way in 1989, one premium car manufacturer has entrusted GEFCO with the management of its reusable folded container supply chain for all its plants and Tier-1 suppliers worldwide since 2014. More recently, a major aerospace company awarded GEFCO a long-term contract to support its transition to a more sustainable supply chain through reusable packaging.

Sébastien Roger, Reusable Packaging Solution Manager at GEFCO, commented: “Our reusable packaging range is designed to protect our customers’ product integrity while optimising truck loading rates, production lines and warehouse storage. As our customers face increasingly fierce market competition, we enable them to optimise their inbound supply chains and significantly boost their profitability.”

In addition to GEFCO’s unique expertise in packaging management, leading manufacturers can also benefit from a wide range of fully-trained asset auditors for insights on their supply chains and how to optimise them. Located across the GEFCO network in Europe, these asset auditors also conduct personal training to help users supervise every step of packaging management, including ordering, shipment bookings, tracking and invoicing.

To further optimise supply chain operations, GEFCO has developed NETBOX, a dedicated IT system for flow tracking. Based on the data in this system, container location and movements can be adjusted at any time in line with needs, providing customers with smart, flexible solutions. This secure predictive software generates significant savings throughout the supply chain for a more sustainable transportation model.

“I am convinced of the unique value that GEFCO’s reusable packaging solutions bring to the market, especially for manufacturers seeking smart solutions to make their supply chain greener. For them, our global network and unrivalled expertise in complex multimodal solutions can be a real game changer,” added Sébastien Roger.

Dematic – the leading supplier of integrated automated technology, software and services to optimise the supply chain – will invite visitors to step into the future of intelligent logistics on stand TL4 at IMHX 2019.

Guests to the stand will have the opportunity to gaze into the future. Speakers from Dematic’s Robotics Centre of Excellence will venture into the realms of intelligent logistics, highlighting some of the exciting new technologies that are under development – offering a glimpse of tomorrow’s solutions. Insights will span from AI to robotic vision systems for single item picking.

“Competitive advantage is won through being acutely aware of future market trends, spotting opportunities before others and responding quickly. But creating responsiveness, agility and higher levels of performance in the supply chain, whether that is by fulfilling customer orders faster or processing returned goods more efficiently, calls for intelligent logistics that is both scalable and future-proof,” says Andy Blandford, Managing Director, Northern Europe at Dematic.

He continues: “At IMHX we hope to bring the future a little closer to visitors by offering insights into how businesses may wish to respond to consumer demands through using new, emerging technologies that are being developed today in our centres of excellence for technical innovation.”

Dematic may be looking to the future, but its focus is firmly fixed on finding solutions to the daily challenges faced by logistics professionals: from gearing up productivity, reducing error rates and handling returns efficiently, to alleviating labour availability issues, providing scalable solutions and future-proofing performance.

At IMHX 2019 Dematic will take the opportunity to engage with supply chain professionals on current and future challenges, to better understand the system needs of today and tomorrow.

Visitors to the Dematic stand will also be taken on a journey of enlightenment around some of the very latest automated logistics solutions available today. These include a fully-working example of Dematic’s leading Pouch Sorter system, capable of solving the most challenging fulfilment and returns problems for retail ecommerce; an on-stand display of the ultra-dense robotic storage system, AutoStore; a live demonstration of Dematic’s Piece Picking Robots in action; and an on-screen display of the very latest Dematic iQ Warehouse Software – the intelligence behind Dematic’s high-performance automated solutions.

Visit Dematic and see the future of intelligent logistics on stand TL4.

UK-based material handling equipment manufacturer B&B Attachments has named Scott Little (above) as its new Financial Controller. He is an experienced CIMA qualified financial controller and holds a CIPS Level 4 Diploma in Purchasing and Supply. The company says Little has a strong background in finance leadership and transformation and has held a number of senior finance positions.

He will be responsible for the monthly performance and regulatory reporting, as well as the interim and year-end statutory reporting. His track record of embedding robust financial governance across an organisation to protect cash flow and profitability made him the ideal selection for B&B.

 

AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) has been consistently developing its dedicated ‘ABC care’ product to cater to the needs of the customers transporting live animals. With special attention towards well-being and comfort of ‘special passengers’ onboard, ABC strives for improvement of its services, deepening of its knowledge and expertise and opting for working only with reliable and trustworthy customers.

This was the case then the carrier has organized a complex charter flight for 146 heifers which was accomplished in partnership with ABC’s long-lasting partner, Intradco Global. The request would have been reviewed as a normal one were it not for the routing, with flight originating in Houston (USA) and final point in Bangkok (Thailand). The ‘ABC care’ team started preparations long before the flight, scrutinizing every detail of the complex delivery and being in a constant dialogue with the customer to make sure that on a fixed day everything went smoothly.
The animals were grouped in 27 cow stalls, each securely stowed and lashed on the maindeck of Boeing 747-8F and flew more than 17,182 km during 19 hours 45 minutes to its final destination in comfortable conditions. During the whole flight, ABC flight crew made sure that the internal temperature has been maintained in accordance with the required guidelines, within the range from 6 °C to 10 °C. Additional support was provided by the groom who made sure that all the cows felt safe and secure.

“We treat animals not like special cargo, but rather as very sensitive passengers who require extra care and attention. No matter how experienced and qualified our specialists are, with every flight we deepen our knowledge and learn from our experience, as each transportation is unique. This helps us in improving our services and mitigating the risks. A successful formula for the organization of such long-haul flight with live animals lies in the combination of expertise and experience of our ‘abc care’ team’ and operational capabilities of our unique Boeing 747-8 freighter. So far in 2019, we have achieved a four-fold increase in a number of charter flights with heifers and hope that will be able to contribute to this sector more in the months to come”, – highlighted Sergey Lazarev, General Director of AirBridgeCargo Airlines.