Duracell is a multinational company that produces batteries. In Europe the batteries are made in Aarschot, Belgium, packed in Heist-op-den-Berg and then exported to more than 60 countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and other regions.
Duracell has a complex logistics operation to run, with a combination of different transport flows, carriers and a mix of parcel, FTL and LTL shipments. Managing these can be rather challenging and time consuming.
“One of the problems we had was that all information was divided over different departments and legacy systems. And to be honest, it sometimes occurred that as soon as a shipment left the warehouse, we had no clue about the real-time shipment status.“ – Wim Farasyn, Logistics Operations Manager at Duracell.
So, whenever they needed an update or when there was a problem, Duracell had to call or email the carrier or manually consult the carrier’s parcel tracking website.
This is a common challenge that can be seen in the market. Manufacturers have a reliable ERP backbone where they manage master data, production, orders and so on. But as soon as the deliveries are ready to be sent to the carrier, ERP systems are lacking the flexibility to cope with the dynamics of transport execution. As a result, users tend to fall back on legacy system like Excel with complex macros and Access databases.
But this is a time consuming and rigid process that can be quite complex to manage. That’s why Duracell started looking for a more flexible solution to manage their transports that would need to be tightly integrated with their ERP, centralizing all transport execution information in one place, and providing real-time visibility on all shipments.
Together with Duracell, the project team set realistic goals, that could be achieved within their time-limit.
“We organized so called deep dive sessions to clearly understand Duracell’s processes and needs. Based on these sessions we composed the ideal technology stack for Duracell. This is one of the important benefits of our modular solution – companies can tailor our solution to their needs.” – Rene Kleber, Director Solution Engineering, Transporeon.
Together with Duracell we’ve set out a target to improve operational efficiency with 35% through process automation.
“We wanted to go live with the solution within a few months to optimize the benefits as soon as possible. We knew it was challenging but the vendor’s project team was able to implement, train and go-live within the given timeframe.”– Wim Farasyn.
“Within this timeframe we even developed new functionality which Duracell required to go-live,” complemented Rene Kleber. “Instead of doing customization specific for Duracell, we proposed an alternative path of co-creation.”
The solution is focussed on improving the visibility and the collaboration between different parties in the transportation process. This makes it very easy to see the status of the orders.
A dynamic team that is focussed on meeting the needs of shippers and manufacturers.
Pricing is always an important factor in a selection process and the solution has a very interesting value for money proposition.
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