Yanmar: “I say to my people: ‘always ring Van Duuren first”
Van Duuren was already responsible for the transport of incoming goods for Yanmar’s production lines, and for deliveries to their customers. “That worked so well that three years ago we extended our collaboration: almost all the transport of our outgoing goods is now handled by Van Duuren,” says Bert Boom, senior manager operations at Yanmar Marine, manufacturer and supplier of diesel engines.
Smaller diesel engines for yachts, for example, are delivered semi-manufactured to Yanmar Marine in Almere for further assembly. In addition, this branch of the company is also responsible for the sales and distribution of larger marine diesel engines for, among other things, seagoing vessels and agricultural products such as tractors. “The logistics involved in these activities demand quite some effort of a haulier,” according to Bert Boom. “Apart from Almere we have distribution points and partners in Rotterdam and Tilburg. Furthermore, Yanmar is subdivided into different business units, each of which has to be serviced and invoiced separately. It’s clear to me that Van Duuren has the knowledge and capacity required to deal with all this in a flexible manner.”
More destinations and routes
For more than ten years, Van Duuren has been responsible for the delivery of incoming and outgoing goods for Yanmar. Three years ago it was decided to use the Vianen logistics service provider for more destinations and routes. Bert Boom: “Our relationship with Van Duuren is extremely professional, so this was a logical step. And I wanted calm within the business units. When a new transport need crops up, my people only have to do one thing: ring Van Duuren.” In order to prevent each business unit having to make individual price and delivery agreements themselves, these are worked out centrally by, among others, Bert Boom and Stef Blommaart of Van Duuren. Stef Blommaart: “In consultation we examined where it did and didn’t work for Yanmar. Where necessary the relationship between Van Duuren and the various Yanmar business units was also worked out in these discussions.”
Transport Management System
A large number of quality issues have been reviewed in the course of the collaboration. According to Bert Boom, one of the most important improvements was the roll-out of the integration with Infodis, Van Duuren’ transport management system. “There always used to be an awful lot of paperwork, and it’s great that most of this is now a thing of the past. We now have a portal in the system through which we can, per business unit, retrieve information. This relates not only to the status of consignments but also to invoicing. And we can also enter our bookings and reservations in the system.” Stef Blommaart agrees that Infodis is a blessing both for haulier and client. “The system is now in use at a number of our customers to their complete satisfaction. In the beginning it was sometimes necessary to give people a nudge to use the system – and to take advantage of all its possibilities, but once they got used to it there was no looking back.”