More efficient handling of all inbound goods
of all registered deliveries via TradeLink
less waiting time for trucks
DEBATIN was founded in 1923 and has been family-owned for three generations. For a good century, it has stood for innovative spirit, reliability, pioneering products and stable customer relationships. Together with its French subsidiaries DEBATIN SARL in Hoenheim and L.E.S.S. France in Chelles, the DEBATIN Group is now one of the market leaders in the industry and sets standards in the development of secure and individual packaging solutions for transport, shipping and logistics.
For some years now, the company has been focusing in particular on sustainability along the entire supply chain - from climate-neutral products to the optimization of yard processes. Until the beginning of 2021, these were rather suboptimal: The small yard became cramped even when two trucks were maneuvering. At peak times, up to seven trucks with raw materials for production were waiting to be unloaded at the same time.
This led to waiting times of at least 30 minutes up to four hours, annoyed employees and overall unloading processes that were as hectic as they were inefficient. This only changed when TradeLink came into play in the first quarter of 2021.
Emons, a globally operating company in the transport and logistics sector with over 121 locations and 3700 employees, stands for services in the fields of transport, contract logistics, air and sea freight, customs, rail freight and digital logistics. Represented in 16 countries, Emons serves over 7000 customers and operates a transport network comprising more than 30 partner companies.
In 2022, Emons identified goods-in transparency as one of its top priorities for digitizing contract logistics. After a market screening and trade-offs between internal solution development in its own Emons | DIGITAL incubator and an external service procurement, Emons came across TradeLink. The first talks immediately revealed the same understanding with regard to digitalization in logistics and opened the discussion around joint synergies. In November 2022, both sides decided to launch a collaborative initiative to jointly drive logistics collaboration. After all, this is how both companies complement each other in their business areas and expertise.
This includes, in particular, the exchange of know-how between logistics, forwarding and digitization experts for achieving better efficiency and transparency over the movement of goods at all Emons locations, as well as improving digital collaboration with all customers and stakeholders in the supply chain.
Tilo Hergarten
Head Marketing & Digitalization | Emons
"This is a necessary collaboration between traditional and new companies in the logistics industry and beyond. This collaborative approach brings together many benefits and promises data-driven advancement of products and services on both sides."
The first, operational focus was on the introduction of the TradeLink platform at two different locations. The two warehouse locations in Markgröningen and Thurnau were selected. Both sites are typical multi-user warehouses, but with different starting points in terms of processes. Markgröningen already had an existing notification obligation for all suppliers, while Thurnau operated as a new site without a notification process.
The start with these two locations combined different advantages. Each local warehouse logistics has its own processes and peculiarities, so one forced the direct comparability in a more complex initial situation. In addition to the common denominator, the measurement basis for recognizing the added value was created. On the other hand, Emons thus reduced the operational costs for the project management.
Under the leadership of Julian Bausch, Logistics Manager Markgröningen, the platform solution was rolled out at both sites. In the first step, we started by setting up the site and created user accounts. This can be realized within 24 hours and lays the foundation for a successful roll-out.
In the first joint workshop, we started to define a common goal and a success plan. In doing so, we defined the clients' key delivery partners and agreed on a fixed deadline by which they should be live. Operational goals included increasing the number of pre-delivery documents by 40% by June 2023, halving truck wait times by April 2023, and reducing peaks in deliveries.
In the second step, we focused on internal adaptation. In a one-hour training session with all key operational staff, all stakeholders were introduced to the platform and how easy it is to use. This was recorded to be shared later within the organization. The key users also took on the role of trainers to pass on the knowledge internally.
In the third step, we created a communication plan for the joint partner onboarding starting in the second week. One responsible person per site was named for the roll-out and processes and milestones were agreed with TradeLink. The top 20 partners were invited within 2 weeks. Templates for the approach were personalized and sent out, followed by the appropriate invitations. We monitored the success of the invitations in a regular check-in.
With the rapid partner go-live, the platform could already be used operationally without any problems with the most important supply partners from the 4th week. From now on, open topics and observations will be discussed in regular check-ins until we reach the routine phase, in which a comparison with the initial objective follows every 3-6 months and new objectives are defined.
Julian Bausch
Logistics Manager Markgröningen | Emons
"Thanks to the support of the project participants from Thurnau and Markgröningen, the involved delivery partners as well as the TradeLink team, above all Lucian Berkmüller, we were always one step ahead of the defined success plan. As a result, we were able to implement a delivery reconciliation solution at our Thurnau site for the first time in record time and completely replace the previously used tool with TradeLink at the Markgröningen logistics center at an early stage."
Thanks to the successful and efficient project management, all relevant delivery partners in Markgröningen were connected to the TradeLink platform in less than 8 weeks. This quickly led to the desired reduction in internal inquiries about delivery information and the processing time for each incoming and outgoing goods.
In Thurnau, all relevant supply partners were also connected in the same time despite the lack of notification processes. In addition, a successful notification system for supply partners was introduced for the first time, which improved capacity utilization and smoothed out delivery peaks.
Danny Paulik
Logistics Manager Thurnau | Emons
"Even in the first workshop, you could sense that everyone involved wanted to go in the same direction. TradeLink and Emons benefited from each other's know-how and practical relevance. In the end, this was also the basis for the rapid implementation.
Despite increasing order volumes at the site, waiting times per ramp contact were significantly minimized and processes streamlined. The tool's ease of use across virtually the entire transport chain met with a very high level of acceptance among suppliers, freight carriers and our customers."
The implementation of the TradeLink platform also provided real-time visibility into the current delivery, yard, and ramp situation, as well as increased availability of digital delivery documents prior to delivery.
Tracking and reporting of delivery quality has been improved and the processing time in inbound and outbound has been reduced by 30 minutes per day per site. In addition to the operational improvement, more than 10 potentials for improving coordination in the logistics centers were identified, one of which has already been implemented on the TradeLink platform.
At the Thurnau site, the partner roll-out for Emons customers in Hall B will now follow. An important step here is the introduction of a mandatory document upload for all partners before the actual announcement. This will make it possible to holistically increase transparency in advance and achieve valuable time savings in work preparation. In addition, one will now be able to measure and compare important key figures such as the measurement and optimization of the processing time in inbound for each delivery.
At the Markgröningen site, the focus is on the onboarding of clients. They are given their own view for transparency on incoming and outgoing goods at the outsourced logistics location. From now on, important key figures such as the aforementioned processing time will also be measured and optimized here for the first time at inbound .
As soon as empties management is available on the TradeLink platform, we plan to digitally simplify and automate this process as well.
The successful roll-out at the first two sites can be chalked up as a successful first step towards a uniform toolbox and the path to structured logistics data around delivery movements at Emons. In addition to the optimization and coverage of further use cases at both pilot sites, a rapid roll-out at the other Emons sites is planned.
The fact that cooperation does not have to end at Sites was shown, among other things, by the extensive double interview with DVZ in April 2023, which addressed how logistics companies and startups can work together without threatening each other at the same time. We were much more pleased about the joint panel appearance at the Emons Demo Days in Cologne in the same month.
The initiative continues to thrive on regular exchanges and workshops between the two sides in order to build on what has already been achieved and identify and promote further mutual potential. We support each other not only in finding ideas, but also in implementing them through the targeted exchange of information.
"At first I wondered whether we really needed such a portal for raw material suppliers," recalls Florian Klonig, Dispatch Manager at DEBATIN. "But then we saw what TradeLink can do."
The initial concerns on the part of DEBATIN as to whether TradeLink would be accepted by the suppliers and forwarding agents as well as by the employees were quickly dispelled. The implementation of TradeLink was initially started with the largest suppliers.
The smooth transition was supported by TradeLink's Roll-Out Manager Anne Listemann, who was always available for support requests. In the meantime, the largest suppliers are on board and have also committed their forwarders to use TradeLink.
Both inside and outside the company, TradeLink is very popular because of its simple and clear handling. Compared to older or "home-made" software solutions, one of the advantages of TradeLink is that the platform is constantly being further developed with the inclusion of customer wishes.
TradeLink grows with its customers!
Through the successful implementation of TradeLink, the yard-processes in particular became more predictable:
Having up to seven trucks at the same time at yard waiting to be unloaded is a thing of the past . By spreading deliveries over several days, delivery peaks have been smoothed out and waiting times reduced from up to four hours in the past to almost zero.
"Our processes have become much more efficient and the ability to plan has improved fundamentally," says Hans-Walter Trepper happily. "And even if there are postponements, it is now possible to implement them quickly in TradeLink".
Another sustainable effect of the cooperation between DEBATIN and TradeLink is the digitalisation of many office processes. The paperless office is no longer a fiction at DEBATIN, because delivery notes and labels that no longer have to be printed out in the future will avoid a lot of paper waste.
According to Focus Money, DEBATIN is one of the 500 most valuable companies in Germany - not measured by market capitalisation, but by the social and societal responsibility in the area of sustainability that the company assumes.
"An important point in sustainability is, of course, digitalisation," Hans-Walter Trepper knows, "and TradeLink can strongly support us in this in the future as well."
In order to implement the goal of a sustainable procurement organisation (for which DEBATIN was certified by the German Association of Materials Management, Purchasing and Logistics in 2021), TradeLink will digitalise the entire supply chain processes - for example, also integrating production and purchasing into the platform - and thus make sustainability even more measurable. Furthermore, it is planned that all delivery notes will also be available digitally in TradeLink in advance.
After the deliveries, the two partners will soon also fully digitalise the outbound transports and further optimise the yard processes together. There are also plans to roll out TradeLink to the company's French site in Hoenheim.
Due to the very limited space at Anton Debatin GmbH's yard , there were constant traffic jams for raw material deliveries. Trucks had to wait up to four hours for unloading.
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