The focus of Wageningen UR Glastuinbouw is on sustainable production systems for greenhouse horticulture
Supply chain solutions on demand
The supply chain is everything that happens to a product fromidea to delivery. To travel through the entire cycle, the supply chain uses various conversion and distribution processes that ensure a successful delivery of the product. In the course of this process, the raw product, in a sense, gains in value as it is handled, tracked, distributed and transported through the right channels and with the bestmeans.Wincanton B.V., with its new international headquarters in ’s-Heerenberg, the Netherlands, manages its customers’ product supply chain and finds the right solutions tomake it work for them.
Wincanton is a market leader in automated warehousing, fuel distribution and grocery distribution. Actually, the company is involved in all aspects of the supply chain. In addition, Wincanton also is a trailblazer in environmentally friendly inter-modal solutions, which look to forms of transport other than vehicles on the roadways. “We can combine different modes of transport that can save the client costs and be environmentally friendlier. Our customised solutions draw upon a range of transport modes while maintaining perfect ‘track and trace’ product visibility,” explains Erik GrootWassink,managing director for the Benelux.
Deep roots
The roots of Wincanton in the Netherlands go back a long way to 1881. At this time, it operated under the name of the Gelderse Tram Wegen, GTW, and was a major goods transporter in the Eastern and Central parts of the country. In 1989, the company was bought by P&O Trans European, a transportation company from the United Kingdom. Wincanton entered the scene in 2003, when it acquired the part of P&O Trans European that was the former GTW. The company has grown into a specialist in supply chain management with a 20 to 30% increase in turnover in the past year. Due to its growth, the company has begun to expand by constructing a new 7,500 m² building and warehouse facilities, which will open in the middle of 2009. Wincanton was one of the first to bring voice technology to the retail supply chain by voice directed picking, where the order picker is instructed by voice what to pick and where to pick it fromwarehouse storage. This allows for up to the minute changes and transactions. The company’s implementation of innovative reverse logistics and recycling solutions were well ahead of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) directive. “We want the contract logistics in the Benelux to further unfold,” says Mr. Groot Wassink. A competitive transport and logistics company is not only moving articles around with supplemental activities to track shipments. It also imbeds itself in the total operations of the client. In the case of warehousing, this includes value-enhancing activities such as stock reworking, product manipulation and returns management, providing Wincanton’s customers with a single source of supply chain expertise.
New territory
The company has broad expertise in outbound and inbound logistics, meaning it receives, stores, and disseminates incoming goods or material for use.Wincanton offers its customers a 4PL-type, fourth party logistics, or lead logistics partner relationships that make a genuine one-stop solution. For this, it relies on its systems know-how and management expertise, as well as its command of the local and European scale.With 4PL,Wincanton can outsource its logistical operations to two or more specialist firms and hire a specialist fourth firm to coordinate the activities of the others. This makes themost experienced supply chain suppliers available to the client, while keeping operations under the trustedmanagement ofWincanton. Synergy between all parts of the supply chain and between supply chain partners is a result of these well-coordinated efforts. Wincanton delivers total supply chain solutions handling operations that range from management of single distribution sites and simple product flows to complex contracts Due to its strategic location, the ‘s-Heerenberg site has becomes Wincanton’s headquarters for international transport The company is a successful, growing and dynamic business with 6,500 vehicles on the roadways and a staff of 30,000 Earlier in Wincanton’s history, when it was still GTW, it developed relationships with countries in or supplying to Eastern Europe and Russia. This opened a gateway to oil rich areas such as Kazakhstan, where drilling for oil has increased over the last 15 years. Engineers estimate that 3.5 billion tons of oil and 2.5 trillion cubic meters of gas are located in the area of the Caspian Sea. Therefore, demand for oil drilling platforms in the sea has increased. The northern portion of the Caspian Sea, where Kazakhstan lies, typically freezes in the winter and this poses a problem for drilling platforms. Small islands are built to reinforce the platforms and the material for these comes from Western Europe. Wincanton has become the main transporter and has a ten-year contract with oil companies operating in the region. Along with the building material, the company also transports consumer goods and food items. “Kazakhstan is growing well and we have developed a special relationship with the companies there. This is an example of how our logistics and transport services can branch out,” points out Mr. Groot Wassink. The Kazakhstan case adds to the diverse ways in which the company is involved with the petroleum and energy sector across Europe, managing operations for businesses such as BP Castrol, Texaco, Exxon, Conoco, Pace and TOTAL in the UK, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.
Maximise and optimise
Just in time (JIT) is a popular strategy for managing production to create and distribute items exactly when needed.Wincanton has incorporated this strategy into its supply chainmodelling by applyingmodern IT techniques to optimise routes, track consignments and maximise driver and vehicle efficiency. “We strive for total visibility through systems integration so that transport can bemanaged acrossmultiple depots and even across borders,” states Mr. Groot Wassink. As the supply chain of Wincanton’s clients becomes more sophisticated and the need for smaller, more frequent deliveries tomatch their demands or meet JIT production schedules, innovative software and organisational structure tighten controls over inventory and production to keep service levels high and costs low. One illustration of the company’s application of these strategic partnerships is with Mitsubishi Motors Europe BV headquartered in the Netherlands. Mitsubishi has separated its spare parts division from its production activity; nevertheless, the company still needs to maintain a connection between the two divisions. “Our planning team at Wincanton produced a proposal aiming to capitalise on available synergies to manage both spare parts and components logistics,” says Mr. Groot Wassink.
Beyond the borders
For Wincanton in the Netherlands, its future strategy lies on two geographical fronts: West and East. In the West, namely the Netherlands, the company has plans to expand its Moerdijk location to take advantage of the increased container traffic between the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. “Our business development department sees good growth here and in our new facilities in ‘s- Heerenberg,” says Mr. Groot Wassink. In the East, Wincanton will build upon its success in Kazakhstan and develop relationships with companies and logistic partners in China.
