"At the end of the day, reliability is the key driver behind us. It is critical to our customers as they are planning their products to be on the shelves and up until then it could create issues," says Jana van Niekerk, Sales Director FMCG, Reefer and Pharma with Maersk. "There will always be disruptions that we cannot control, but we can come up with solutions to manage those disruptions that give a lot of uncertainty for cargo owners. Ultimately, we want to bring an end to end solution to our customers that gives them back part of the control and the resilience, but also flexibility in their supply chain."
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Not an easy task given the current geopolitical tensions and other disruptions that prove to be quite the challenge for the logistics industry. "Over the past years, we have seen this all-important schedule reliability decline rapidly, with its lowest point probably during Covid-19. Although customers are looking for reliability, our industry has not really been able to increase those numbers."
Networks
It is why Maersk is increasingly focussing on networks and integrating services in order to be able to increase agility. "Networks are becoming more important. The Gemini network – a cooperation between Maersk and Hapag Lloyd in most of the East-West trade lanes – has now gone live, and our ambition is to offer an industry-leading schedule reliability of at least 90 percent as well as a best-in-class service through our ocean networks."
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As most disruptions happen in the port or transshipment port, the new Gemini network cooperation is keen to diminish those, Jana informs. "You could compare our previous service to a bus system: You have to make many stops and if there is a disruption along the way, the delay that is caused in one of the stops gets added onto the overall schedule transit time. We take that out with the new 'hub-and-spoke' system of our network. We will only call a few main ports – the hubs - along the way to diminish the impact of disruptions. And then the 'spokes' – in our case shuttles that we globally operate ourselves – connect the hubs further into the network."
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Shuttles
Those shuttles, which are big enough to carry a few 1000 TEUs, connect only one or maximum two ports, explains Jana. "Rather than transshipment, we call this transloading from one ship to another, whilst the goods remain at the terminal. The shuttles go from, for instance, Rotterdam to London Gateway or from Bremerhaven to Gdansk and back. The shuttles have a shorter transit time, and they are more agile and therefore the overall reliability will increase."
One of those hubs where the cargo is transloaded from the mainliners into the shuttle services is Rotterdam. "We need a big throughput to handle all those transloaded units. It is one of the major importer ports both for final destination as well as for movement into the rest of Europe. That is why we built a new coldstore in Rotterdam: to bring the ocean service, the hub function, and the cold storage together in one location and close to each other. That enables us to handle the cargo in a very efficient way, transload it, or offer value-added services before further distribution."
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Speed to market
Jana expects the new coldstore – that is BREAM and SKAL certified as well as aiming to get the GDP certificate for pharma in Q3 - to contribute to an increased speed to market. "The coldstore is located right next to the terminal; we are connected through an internal road from the terminal into the coldstore. That will enable fast and efficient discharging from the vessel into the coldstore so that fresh produce importers can benefit from this increased speed to market."
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Integrated services are an increasingly important aspect to the customer, Jana notices. "The integration of services is a deliberate extension of the value we can create along the supply chain, which allows us to offer our customers a farm-to-fork solution. Specifically, from our fresh produce customers, we see increased demand for more integrated solutions." Jana notices that this is driven by the benefits of having fewer players involved in the supply or cold chain, as well as fewer handovers during the logistical process. "Having it all in one hand allows us the flexibility of playing with different options along the supply chain, whereas working with different providers further increases the complexity."
Effectively manage the supply chain
That integration extends beyond ocean and coldstores, Jana mentions. "Besides the 700 vessels that we operate, we also have airfreight capabilities. With the Boeing freighters that Maersk is globally running we are one of the top 15 airforwarders. With our network of other assets – like the cold stores, for example – we can connect again across the supply chain. For instance, by speeding up the supply chain by switching from ocean to air. Or by keeping cargo in the coldstore. It is really about how we can effectively manage the supply chain."
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That efficiency, of course, has its impact on the costs. All the more important since new trade tariffs and cost-increasing regulations are potentially being imposed anytime soon around the world, Jana mentions. "That brings a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability. Companies will have to react to that, and they may diversify, adjust their supply chains, or change their inventory levels, for instance. Our integrated solutions can give back flexibility to customers to ensure more resilience to manage those uncertainties," Jana concludes.
For more information:
Jana van Niekerk
Maersk
jana.vanniekerk@maersk.com
www.maersk.com