JCB shares transport management experience with aftermarket industry
Apr 11, 2017
A senior member of global manufacturer JCB outlined how the company had improved its logistics operations to an audience of aftermarket professionals at an event run by the Chartered Institute of Logistics (CILT) last month (March).
Hosted by transport management technology company 3T Logistics who work with JCB, the event saw Chris Buckler, Operations Director for JCB Service talk about the logistics challenges that JCB has as an aftermarket supplier, and how they have overcome these issues.
Entitled 'Aftermarket logistics and transport: Trends for a global aftermarket business' Chris's presentation demonstrated how JCB have developed a global strategic transport plan, creating new distribution models to support growth and fulfil customer demand.
"Transport costs are a necessary cost of servicing customers well and are influenced by all sorts of behaviours, both internal and external," commented Chris. "The speed and quality of product transportation is very important to us at JCB - the integral task of servicing customers doesn't conclude until we make the delivery to them."
Despite having a massive global network of customers and suppliers, JCB aims to service any dealer in the world for a VOR (Vehicle of Road) request within 24 hours. This has significant implications for transport management and so JCB has been working with 3T since 2008 to streamline logistics processes using their sophisticated transport management technology
3T's systems use advanced algorithms to optimise vehicle utilisation, manage carriers and automate a whole range of activity from carrier invoice auditing to tracking complex inventory.
Chris also talked about people's increasing digital footprint, highlighting the importance of making effective use of the huge amounts of data that organisations now have access to.
"One thing you can be certain about the future is that life will be different to what we know today," he commented. "Technology is changing at a dramatic and accelerating rate. We have to change and adapt how we do business and interface throughout the whole supply chain ...those that don't change and adapt will be left behind."
Chris explained how 3T's monthly reports provide information about carrier on-time delivery performance as well as an analysis of freight cost, a review of shipment numbers and statistics about the CO² foot print all of which help inform JCB's forward planning.
3T's Business Development Manager Steve Holmes was delighted with the way that the event went. "It was a really successful evening and the feedback we received from the audience was very positive with people commenting how useful and informative Chris's talk was."
3T will be joining forces with CILT again later in the year to run another free presentation for logistics professionals at their Leicester headquarters.
