ADVERTORIAL Contract logistics is multi-faceted and encompasses a wide range of products and services. The key to success is certainly preparation; it’s important to map the process from start to finish and recognise all the things that can potentially go wrong – would you agree?
How do you go about tackling a new customer? With any new customer a lot of preparation is required before a new operation is implemented. Firstly a scope of works is agreed upon and is treated as a working document throughout the process and this is aligned with the development of the service contract. There are a number of implementation meetings where we discuss critical items such as; product route to market, product handling,
Preparation is certainly key with handling any 3PL operation.
set up of product rotation, pick activities, IT master data set up,
To foresee any potential challenges and hurdles is a key part to
delivery requirements, returns etc. depending on the scope this
moving products on time and in full. Every customer’s operation is
process varies in complexity and time. Once the scope has been
different and should be treated as such, and at NNR we recognise
finalised we put together the implementation project plan with
this and do not attempt to shoehorn customers into a set operation
relevant lead times, testing and targets for a set go live. This project
as we know this doesn’t work. Visibility and communication
plan is managed by experienced project managers who have been
are crucial in the management of stock flow. For most of our
involved throughout the process to ensure continuity. We produce
customers we are handling product from source (imports), into
a working SOP document to ensure all processes and procedures
our warehousing facilities for put away and storage, then crucially
are documented for future use. After extensive testing we are
to pick as per specification for final mile delivery. Throughout this
confident to go live and manage the customer going forward with
process we recognise that data transparency is crucial and we
a skilled, experienced work force.
support this with advanced systems which allow our customer to track their shipment every step of the way. We also understand that compliance is crucial in order for our customer to be able to collect cash so correct signed POD’s are vital to the success rate on collection. Finally we have expansive experience in delivering performance for our customers and continually look and evaluate our metrics to understand where we can continually improve on efficiency and performance.
FORWARDER magazine
March 2017
51