Reduction of yard time per day
Reduction of waiting times & congestion
Smoothing of the delivery peaks
The Neumarkter Lammsbräu brewery has been producing high-quality beer for over 400 years. The family-owned company attaches great importance to organic quality. Today, the product range consists of 22 organic beer varieties, two gluten-free beverages, 13 varieties of organic lemonade, and organic mineral water and sparkling water. They are supported in production by around 160 employees.
For ecological reasons, Germany's oldest organic brewery sells most of its beverages domestically. Only about 3% are exported abroad. In Germany, Neumarkter Lammsbräu is the market leader with its organic beers and has made a name for itself in the brewing industry over the course of 400 years. The headquarters are located close to the city center, which is why the 22 daily transports are not only a logistical challenge for the brewery, but for the entire city.
As with many other companies, peak times on certain days repeatedly caused difficulties with logistical processes. The transports took place so irregularly that on Wednesdays the load was sometimes twice as high as on Fridays. Because the brewery is located close to the city center, traffic jams occurred there, which caused dissatisfaction among both employees and residents. A second logistics site was therefore built 4 km outside the city of Neumarkt.
The transports were distributed very irregularly throughout the week, so that on some days it was impossible for the employees to keep an overview and the waiting times of the trucks kept increasing. On other days, however, the situation was very relaxed. Overall, however, the delivery peaks caused high demurrage and a lot of stress among the employees. For them, it was impossible to set up proper planning and use resources correctly.
To smooth out the peaks and enable better planning, there was a desire for a platform that would bring more transparency to the processes. As a member of the Freie Brauer, a community of 44 medium-sized family breweries, Neumarkter Lammsbräu has always been in close contact with the Distelhäuser brewery. It was from them that the recommendation to use TradeLink ultimately came.
After the cooperation was decided, the rollout began immediately in order to finally shorten the idle times of the trucks, to relieve the employees and to enable the planning of the logistical processes. Therefore, at the beginning, all transports were digitalized with the help of the platform in order to create the necessary transparency in the supply chain. With traditional Time slot management systems, logistics manager and authorized signatory Günther Membarth always felt that the customer side was missing and the introduction was far too complex. A collaborative approach to logistics is essential to create transparency along the entire supply chain and to get partners to use the tool. If there is no advantage for them to use and get used to, the implementation of a new system is only unnecessary additional work for them.
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.
The introduction went off without a hitch and, due to its simplicity, could take place independently of the IT department. Each of the employees, even without expert knowledge, can operate the platform without problems thanks to the intuitive user interface and insert or retrieve information as needed.
In the meantime, a large proportion of customers are represented on the platform. 95% of outgoing goods already go through TradeLink. Whereby outbound also frequently means inbound , since some trucks not only pick up new bottles but also bring empties. This creates a cycle of empties.
The handling of transports with the support of TradeLink has resulted in employees being able to better plan deliveries and pick-ups. This has made it possible to reduce the transit time of the transports by 15 minutes. The traffic jam in the city center is now history.
Previously, there were enormous delivery peaks in the middle of the week, which caused stress. On Fridays, on the other hand, the load was only half as high. With the introduction of the platform, Wednesday peaks have been reduced by 50%, which has greatly eased the burden on employees. Waiting time and congestion are words that are no longer part of the vocabulary of Lammsbräuer logistics staff. Truck waiting times have been reduced by 100 %.
A large dashboard in the hall shows everyone at a glance when and how many transports are due. Thanks to this transparent planning, employees can better calculate their lunch break and everyone knows what the daily schedule looks like. This increases internal satisfaction enormously.
A restructuring process is currently being carried out at Neumarkter Lammsbräu. Digitalization and process clarity facilitate this process and ensure greater efficiency.
The feedback from customers is also consistently positive. They appreciate the transparency and reliability as well as the high service level and do not resist. If there were previously regression claims from freight forwarders, TradeLink can now be used to provide evidence and fend off the claims. This resulted in cost savings of up to EUR 10,000 in 2022 alone. The short loading times mean that field staff can take their work to customer meetings and achieve great results.
Whereas 50% of incoming goods have been handled via TradeLink to date, this figure is set to rise to 100% in the future. And inbound is also to run completely via the platform in the future. The second location four kilometers outside the city has already been connected to TradeLink and will be included more and more. A contactless check-in terminal for the truckDrivers is also being planned.
The employees of the organic brewery still plan the transports themselves. But that is set to change. In the future, the planning will be done entirely by the customers, which will further reduce the workload of the employees and increase efficiency.
The collaboration between the experienced, 400-year-old company and the young start-up has enabled tedious problems to be solved and logistical processes to be optimized.
Irregularly distributed transports caused delivery peaks, long waiting times and traffic jams in the city center. Planning time and resources was impossible for employees.
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