Evolution Time Critical has recently delivered an emergency shipment of parts to a carmaker’s plant in Kocaeli, Turkey, reportedly preventing a threatened two-day stoppage that could have cost the company €2m ($2.7m).
Evolution would not confirm the recipient but Ford’s joint venture with Turkish conglomerate Koç Holding – called Ford Otosan – produces Transit and Transit Connect vans at its plant in Kocaeli. Hyundai, Honda and Isuzu are also present in the vicinity.
The shipment of seatbelt retractors, which was sourced and flown from Wroclaw in Poland, via Berlin in Germany, to Turkey in less than 20 hours, prevented stoppage that would have resulted from having to wait for the standard delivery. Retrofitting of the devices was not an option according to Evolution.
Instead, 20 boxes of seatbelt retractors were collected from a Polish supplier and driven to the regional airport in Wroclaw.
Recent changes in Turkish legislation prevented immediate traffic rights for a direct charter flight, making it necessary to find a scheduled aircraft with capacity to carry the whole shipment elsewhere. Evolution staff located a flight from Berlin, which had capacity to carry the shipment (weighing 4,420kg) and departed late enough to allow for the transfer of the shipment from Wroclaw, and then arranged an immediate transfer to Berlin from Wroclaw.
The company also organised for an onboard courier to meet the charter upon arrival in Berlin, and accompany the shipment on its onward scheduled flight to Turkey.
The shipment was rushed to the component manufacturer for delivery by noon and a convoy of taxis was waiting at the component manufacturer’s factory to deliver the completed parts to the carmaker as they exited the production line.
“Despite the strong logistical expertise of most vehicle manufacturers, our experience is that vehicle manufacturers and first tier suppliers are relying on contingency planning techniques that are no longer sufficiently robust to provide guaranteed on-time delivery,” said Brad Brennan, managing director of Evolution Time Critical.
“With overly lean inventories and over-stretched transport infrastructures, supply chain strength analysis has to be much more rigorous.”
