Evolution Time Critical has averted production delays, which would have cost US$1,000 per minute, by getting urgently needed components to a car manufacturing plant – by suitcase.
The emergency logistics company had to get a pallet of car parts from Spain to the car maker’s plant in Thailand. The components were taken to Germany by road, where they were repacked into suitcases before being sent with two onboard couriers on a flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok.
The shipment arrived in time to avoid disrupting the production line.
“When analysing the most efficient route, we consider all available options, as the most obvious may not always be the most rapid,” said Brad Brennan, managing director of Evolution. “The overriding factor is whether the route is robust and direct enough to reach the manufacturer’s production line in time to keep production going. In this case, we calculated that driving the components to Frankfurt Airport would be faster than booking them on a flight from Spain.”
Within two hours of the initial enquiry, the team had a driver ready to deliver the pallet to Germany, and had also arranged for two onboard couriers to be ready to meet the driver in Frankfurt, as the airline would not allow a single courier to book all the goods as excess baggage.
Evolution arranged for its couriers to purchase nine suitcases en route to the airport in order to repack the components and prevent them from being damaged. Upon arrival in Frankfurt, the components were transferred from pallet to suitcases and checked in by the couriers.
As soon as the flight landed in Bangkok, the couriers declared the goods to customs and delivery was made the same morning, 36 hours after the customer had originally made contact.
“Our analysts track the shipment at every step in order to provide real-time updates to customers,” continued Brennan. “We are increasingly finding that shipping time critical deliveries by onboard courier provides the agility needed to meet urgent customer requirements.”
