By taking advantage of integrated transport offerings consisting of both charter and line-haul services, DB Schenker managed to transport two ball valves in time from Australia to Italy. In case the time frame would have been missed it would have become a costly affair for the contracting entities.
Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Group is one of the rare players offering clients single source line-haul and charter services, allowing seamless project management as well as process optimization. Indeed, their “Cargo Supermarket” product resembles a warehouse where clients can choose different products that are arranged on stackers. So did DB Schenker when time became a critical issue for flying two ball valves as fast and as economically as possible from Perth in the Western Australia to Milan in the northern part of Italy.
Single-source solution
The first part of the shipment’s journey began when the two wooden boxes were loaded aboard a chartered IL-76TD-90VD freighter belonging to Volga-Dnepr’s fleet, which flew the consignment from
Perth to Singapore. At Changi Airport the ball valves were transferred onto one of AirBridgeCargo’s Boeing 747F scheduled cargo services to Milan-Malpensa Airport, close to where the valves were
being sent for maintenance.
Robert van de Weg, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Volga-Dnepr Group commented: “For this flight, speed was important but the customer also wanted to reduce the number of
loading/offloading procedures or the need for trucking between hubs to ensure the safety of the cargo. The solution we provided was able to satisfy both criteria and was certainly helped by the
fact that we have one of our IL-76TD-90VD freighters positioned in the Asia Pacific region on a permanent basis.”
Robert went on to say that this way the ABC/V-D Group can respond faster to customer needs and reduce aircraft positioning costs at the same time. He mentioned another important aspect resulting
from the “Cargo Supermarket” concept and its combination of charter and scheduled services: the cutting down of documentation work by using a single air waybill.
“We are seeing growing demand for this type of solution,” the manager concluded.
Kaiser to become DB Schenker’s ‘Freight’ Kaiser
Days before, DB Schenker had announced plans to reorganize their management as of January 1, 2017 in order to streamline processes and get closer to their customers. According to their
announcement, a new division named “Freight” will be created, consolidating air and ocean freight as well as surface transports.
DB Schenker states that the aim of this step is to tie these three product areas closer together in order to quickly improve integrated transport products and services and make better use of
growth potential. The new integrated unit will be headed by Ewald Kaiser, currently member of the Management Board and so far responsible for the logistics firm’s Land Transport Division.
Further to this, a new division called Commercial DB Schenker (CCO) and Contract Logistics, headed by Tom Schmitt, will also be set up.
Heiner Siegmund