Schmitz Cargobull: Ready for future challenges with BinMan®
Box bodies for refrigerated goods, tippers for construction materials or curtainsiders for heavy coils – Schmitz Cargobull has the right trailer for every type of transport to ensure that the freight traffic runs smoothly. This principle also applies at the Muensterland based vehicle manufacturer’s central empty container yard in Altenberge. According to Julia Robert, Container Planner at Schmitz Cargobull, everything comes together here – the delivery and subsequent redistribution of empty containers from or to various Schmitz Cargobull assembly plants. According to her, there are around 500 different types of containers in circulation.
Since April 2021, six employees at Schmitz Cargobull in Altenberge and neighboring Vreden have been working with BinMan®. At the same time, a new external supplier platform was launched. “An interface enables us to automatically transfer containers with production parts for trailers from suppliers into BinMan®,” says Julia Robert. The interaction of the two projects means that there are almost no more manual operations. This not only improves the control of empty containers, but also significantly reduces loss.
Three individual interfaces for SAP and supplier platform
The customer was originally convinced by a successful BinMan® project at truck manufacturer DAF Trucks. After the requirements analysis and a few customer-specific adjustments to the BinMan® standard processes by LOGSOL, the productive implementation at Schmitz Cargobull took place in the second half of 2021. Three individual interfaces played a decisive role – one to the customer’s central SAP system and two to the simultaneously introduced supplier platform. “In addition to the outbound deliveries from the Schmitz Cargobull plants from SAP, there were those from the suppliers and service providers from the supplier portal, complemented by transport details from external suppliers,” explains Thomas Stoehr, Senior Product Manager at LOGSOL.
Julia Robert and her team tested all interfaces and covered all relevant processes. If something did not work as desired, Thomas Stoehr and the LOGSOL project team were always available for quick support. Julia Robert emphasizes the high appreciation for this fast response and adds: “Therefore, we never had major downtimes that would have delayed the project.” After going live, the container management system was implemented at 15 different European sites within a year. These include three plants and a logistics center in Germany as well as production sites in the UK, Lithuania, Spain and Turkey, in addition to subsidiaries for spare parts distribution plus service providers.
Increased efficiency and standardization through BinMan®
The introduction of BinMan® has helped Schmitz Cargobull to make many processes more efficient and also to further standardize the workflows in container management, especially the disposition of empty containers, across the various national and international locations. From Julia Robert’s point of view, for example, it is a great advantage that container orders are bundled via BinMan® and no longer have to be sent back and forth in Excel lists: “Errors can be resolved immediately on a daily basis instead of a month later, as before.” Another improvement was realized shortly after the implementation of BinMan®: “Suppliers have accepted the 24/7 access to their inventories very well,” reports the Container Planner.
At one Schmitz Cargobull plant, employees use the BinMan® app. “With mobile data capture devices, we can book quantity discrepancies or container defects directly without having to sit at the computer for a long time and upload pictures in a cumbersome way,” says Julia Robert. Delivery slips are scanned on the goods, damaged containers are photographed, and the complaint is transmitted directly.
According to Julia Robert, the development so far since the introduction of BinMan® at Schmitz Cargobull has been thoroughly positive, even though a large number of the up to 300 suppliers still have to be connected to the system. She can even very well imagine an expansion of the cooperation with LOGSOL: “I like the flexibility of LOGSOL, so that everything runs 100 percent smoothly for us.” In view of increasingly complex supply chains, Schmitz Cargobull sees good opportunities for easily adapting BinMan® to changing requirements and further optimizing existing processes.