Since September the company has been managing an international logistics platform in Trnava, near Bratislava, where parts are delivered from suppliers in Central and Eastern Europe and packed into containers for haulage to ports in Hamburg and Bremerhaven. The company will have moved 174 containers along the new route by the end of the year.
The parts are shipped to the Mercosure PSA plants, and will eventually also include parts shipped from China and Russia the company told Automotive Logistics News. That addition could be an early indication of the “integral” role Gefco is going to play in the plans Russian Railways has for freight transport between Asia and Europe, as reported last week.
Gefco Slovakia took over the contract at its Trnava international logistics facility, near Bratislava, from the French division and now handles the transport of parts from PSA’s European suppliers to the warehouse, as well as consolidation of the parts into sea containers once there. Gefco also takes returnable packaging back to the suppliers.
Once put in containers at Trnava, Gefco ships the parts by an intermodal route involving road and rail to the German ports.
According to the company Gefco Slovakia’s ability to containerize the parts at Trnava and ship directly to the ports helps reduce transport costs. Previously, the goods were trucked by road to Le Havre in France and reloaded into sea freight containers.
Jana Bacikova, Overseas director at Gefco Slovakia said the company expects to move a total of 1,480 in 2013.
Gefco and Brose in UK
In other news, Gefco’s UK division has signed a three-year contract extension with German car interior systems supplier Brose. Under the contract Gefco is setting up a new freight flow from Brose’s production facility in Coventry, UK to one of its customers in Redditch, around 48kms west.
To allow for the fact that Brose’s production volumes will be variable in the implementation phase, Gefco is using its own fleet during the initial stages of the operation but as volumes grow, it said it will provide dedicated vehicles in the Brose livery to transport the company’s product.
