MENSCHEN INFORMATION
MENSCHEN INFORMATION Imperial Logistics PULLING OUT ALL The logistics of spare parts supply remains a core competence which Krone keeps under its own management. But for handling merchandising products such as brochures and toys, the agricultural machinery manufacturer relies on logistic specialist Imperial. 24
STOPS Michael Korpak manages the Imperial depot in Herten. Picking, packing, loading – and all of that as fast as possible. These are the first actions in probably all spare parts depots when an order comes in. In the farm equipment sector it’s very often the manufacturers themselves that take care of stocking and dispatch preparation while service providers stand ready for rapid transport of the items. This is the situation with Krone as well. Apart from one exception: merchandising articles such as brochures, promotional baseball caps, ballpoint pens and, naturally, the muchvalued toy models. These materials and their handling - from storage to logistics - has been passed on by the Spelle manufacturers to the company Imperial Logistics International which has an Europewide network with around 9000 employees. The logistic specialists service clients from a great variety of sectors from 170 locations, earning 1.6 billion € annual turnover. The enterprise has two divisions: “Imperial Transport Solutions” offering express, ship and road freight, and “imperial Supply Solutions” providing complete logistic solutions for key branches such as chemicals and car manufacture as well as plant and machinery construction. MULTI- USER DEPOT The Herten site features a team of more than 160 staff and belongs to “Imperial Supply Chain Solutions”. The greatest proportion of the around 43,000 m2 hall area is covered by high shelving for pallet storage. An absolute eyecatcher is, however, the fully automatic small parts depot with 230,000 storage spaces. “The work is carried out in three shifts, on weekends too when required, because it is part of our service to be able to deliver to customers round the clock,” declares depot manager Michael Korpak. In the first instance, this is necessary for a manufacturer of lifts that has developed its complete worldwide spare parts logistics over the Herten depot, all parts being stored there. But such support is also necessary for farm machinery, which also represents a substantial part of the depot turnover and has very time-sensitive seasonal peaks, according to the depot manager. “30% of the material we move is, so to speak, part of plannable operations, the biggest proportion, however, features spontaneous orders.” A total of more than 85,000 different items are stored in Herten from which annually around 600,000 orders with 1.7 million so-called “picks”, i.e. removals from the shelves. An interesting point here is certainly the so-called multi-user concept whereby the “depot logistic services” for different big customers are handled together in one depot to save space and reduce costs. In Herten, this applies to a handful of customers. “Long term relationships are important to us, and working together as much as possible. For us, this entails meeting customer requirements and sector-specific specialties as best we can,” states the depot manager. HIGH NOON TO EXHIBITIONS A part of such specialties is that Imperial also delivers parts to certain customers on a just-in-time basis straight to the assembly belts - and sometimes even smaller preassembled modules. It is also accepted as normal by this manager that the business, as “reliable forwarder” also fulfills all the requirements for rapid international air freight traffic. “In fact, we pull out all the stops for our customers.” And it is not as if only technical parts are to be found within the wide depot buildings. In a special separated-off area a glance in the shelves reveals cartons containing a large variation of the merchandising materials mentioned at the beginning. “Normally the action here is not quite so hectic as in the spare parts sector for lifts or farm machinery,” reports Michael Korpak. However, this area should not be underestimated regarding speed of turnover. Between August 2016 and July 2017 more than 608,000 positions were sent off for Krone alone, after all. Exhibitions and similar events regularly ensure work peaks in the dispatch of merchandising articles. In such cases it’s quite common that the material reserves that have been taken to events prove insufficient, often having to be re-delivered at very short notice such as happened once again this year during Agritechnica. For example, there the toy models proved so popular – selling like the proverbial hot cakes – that a replenishing consignment left here for Hanover every day,” he reports with a smile. 25
