Business Direct, the leading In-Night and Specialist innovative logistics solutions provider, is using its new high-speed, through-the-night, inbound Continental European air service to add value and improve the efficiency for its new Client Jungheinrich.
Jungheinrich, who offer the most comprehensive range of materials handling solutions and services available from one source in the UK, now benefit from same night and next day parts delivery service to its UK customers and service engineers.
Business Direct has signed a four year, valuable contract with Jungheinrich, to provide a seamless, flexible and cost effective Continental Europe - UK delivery solution.
Service Parts and materials can be ordered up to 14.30pm local UK time by Jungheinrich clients. These are then picked at Jungheinrich's European Parts Distribution centre in Lahr in Southern Germany up until 17.00hrs local. Business Direct GmbH collects all the UK bound consignments directly from Lahr and then, utilising its dedicated 'airbridge' out of Frankfurt, ships these directly into Coventry Airport for arrival same evening.
Once the freight has arrived into the UK, Business Direct injects the consignments into its extensive UK depot and delivery network, guaranteeing that the product is available to Jungheinrich's 500 strong service engineers' team by 7 am next morning.
Jungheinrich chose Business Direct as its preferred delivery partner because Business Direct was the only company to offer an effective 'in-boot' through the night delivery solution, backed up with the flexibility of ParcelXchanges 'drop boxes' and other dedicated pick up and drop off points. This UK network is complemented by a fully supported German operation, thus offering a total one stop solution for Jungheinrich. As a consequence Jungheinrich has been able to optimise the costs and efficiency of its supply chain and enhance the service to its field engineers.
Business Direct also utilises a full track and trace capability which, linked in with Jungheinrich's SAP system, has enabled a 95% first time availability parts pick together with a delivery accuracy in excess of 99% to the UK field service engineers. In addition, Jungheinrich has full visibility of every spare part ordered from the UK - from the point of order, via the warehouse through to the final customer delivery point.
Business Direct's high-speed inbound Continental European air service has also enabled Jungheinrich to maximise the uptime of its equipment for all its UK customers.
The other major advantage to Jungheinrich of Business Direct's Continental European through-the-night air service is that it has helped them to eliminate the need to hold buffer stocks of parts in the UK, consequently significantly reducing locally held inventory, warehousing and distribution costs, without compromising extremely high customer service levels to the end customer.
Business Direct provides Jungheinrich's service engineers with a seamless, effective and traceable returns service. The engineer simply leaves the part to be returned at the designated normal delivery point with a special returns label attached to it. Business Direct's unique barcode number on the label enables it to uplift these consignments via the UK national delivery and depot network and Continental European 'airbridge'. Consignments are returned back to Jungheinrich's European Distribution centre in Lahr quickly and efficiently.
"We chose Business Direct because they offered a flexible, cost effective delivery solution backed up by full track and trace capability. They are very professional in their approach and by forming a partnership we are confident that when issues arise we can work together to resolve them" commented Roger Stevens, Head of Supply Chain, Jungheinrich UK.
"Business Direct's unique selling proposition (USP) with the Continental European high-speed inbound service is that we can tailor-make it to meet the exact needs of a particular customer, in this case Jungheinrich, and add significant value to their operation," commented Paul Carvell, Chief Executive Business Direct Group. "We can back this up with a high quality infrastructure and reputation for service excellence in the UK. We are delighted that Jungheinrich is one of the first company's to take advantage and benefit from this major new development in our business."