Recognised as market leading suppliers to the global logistics business, Jungheinrich UK had to look no further than the Amethyst Group in Bedfordshire when awarding a contract for its third party logistics support to manage 19,000 lift truck parts.
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Having established a successful overnight parts delivery system direct to any one of its 500 engineers nationwide, the next logical step for Jungheinrich was to review the storage of its lift truck parts held in the UK.
Jungheinrich UK Head of Supply Chain, Roger Stevens said: "With a fast changing business demanding a more flexible approach to parts storage, we were convinced that efficiencies could be gained from outsourcing our parts supply business."
"The decision to work with the Amethyst Group was based on their proven experience serving the automotive and aftermarket sectors, which offered the supply chain improvements we were seeking, operating on a ring-fenced common SAP/R4 platform, with the transfer of skilled staff for business continuity" said Stevens.
Whilst the 19,000 line items were physically transferred to the 13 metre high 9000 square metre warehouse operated by Amethyst,
the inventory remained on the common software platform, with a simple change of storage location the only sign of change. For engineers and customers it was business as usual.
Dominic Bacon, Distribution Centre Manager for Amethyst explained: "We are used to managing parts inventories in a multi-user environment and were confident of delivering the promised efficiencies, space utilisation, order accuracy and order fulfilment for Jungheinrich."
With a seamless transition of the parts operation and the additional resources required to better manage the peaks in demand, Roger Stevens is convinced that Jungehinrich has made the right decision to work in partnership with Amethyst concluding:
"The acid test is the service delivery to our customers which we measure continuously – which I am pleased to say is right on target."