MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
Evolution Time Critical prevents a £500,000 production delay by shipping 600kg of desperately needed automotive components from China to Mexico over a weekend, using just one courier and overcoming many challenges that stopped conventional logistics operations from succeeding.
Following an urgent Saturday afternoon call to its global control centre, Evolution Time Critical facilitated a weekend shipment of 600kg of desperately needed automotive components from a supplier in China to a vehicle manufacturer in Mexico, preventing production delays that would have cost around £500,000. Evolution’s analysts arranged for the transportation of the goods using a single courier despite a total weight of 600kg, provided a German speaker to coordinate with airline staff at all stages of the journey and worked closely with its customer’s supplier to provide accurate customs documentation to officers at Shanghai Airport.
"This request was made considerably more challenging by the fact that being a weekend, the customer’s supplier was hard to reach, and we urgently needed to liaise with him to arrange for export invoices and a packing list, without which clearing customs would have been impossible," explains Brad Brennan, managing director, Evolution Time Critical. "Key to the success of this operation was ensuring that the goods were export cleared ready to be carried on board the aircraft without delay, so making contact with the supplier and preparing the relevant paperwork was a major priority."
Evolution quickly established that in order to maintain production, 40 boxes of components, each weighing 15kg, were urgently needed. The customer authorised as many couriers as would be necessary to carry the critical components, but with careful planning Evolution was able to organise for the shipment to be carried by a single courier, significantly reducing costs. Having ascertained that Shanghai customs were able to export clear goods at weekends, Evolution immediately began contacting the supplier in order to create the necessary paperwork required at Shanghai airport by 18:00 on Sunday. Evolution’s courier delivered the documents to the airport by just after 17:00, despite fog-bound roads, allowing export customs clearance to be completed in time.
The customer’s management team was updated in real time throughout the journey with SMS alerts and emails, keeping them apprised of the components’ progress. Evolution Time Critical arranged for a German speaking courier to carry the shipment, to facilitate ease of communication with airline staff en route in Frankfurt and Munich, and alerted Lufthansa station managers to the urgent status of the shipment.
All 40 boxes were checked in as baggage onto a flight to Mexico on Sunday evening, complete with relevant paperwork, and were accompanied throughout their journey by Evolution’s courier, who checked at each transshipment point to ensure that all the boxes were loaded onto the connecting flight. The goods arrived at Mexico City Airport early Monday evening, and were rushed to the customer’s plant. Production was able to continue as normal, avoiding losses of up to £500,000.
About Evolution Time Critical
Evolution Time Critical is the world’s leading specialist in emergency logistics for the automotive industry. Analysts are available 24 hours a day, ready to develop and implement solutions in any part of the world within a 15-minute response window, calling on a vast range of techniques, skills and contacts to ensure that goods reach their destination on time.
The skills of Evolution’s team are also available for consulting projects, helping clients to achieve additional savings in their supply chains while also strengthening and improving manufacturing efficiency. Increasingly, Evolution has found that emergency logistics is playing an integral role in lean strategies as the automotive industry returns to higher production volumes, allowing further inventory reductions while maintaining the reliability of deliveries to manufacturing plants.
The expertise and techniques developed by Evolution for the automotive sector are also benefitting the aerospace and marine industries, where the company helps clients to release capital trapped in spare parts by facilitating urgent parts deliveries, and return aircraft and ships to service more quickly.
