Components supplier Plastic Omnium has signed a contract with Gefco for the management of inbound plastic components through the logistics provider’s Halewood facility in the UK and onto its plant in Warrington. Gefco has also announced partnerships with Actility and Wakeo to more accurately track the cradles used to deliver motorcycles to dealers across Europe.
Gefco’s 12,000 sq.m Halewood facility, which opened in 2017, will serve as a third-party logistics warehouse for Plastic Omnium. The company will receive “multiple thousand parts” from Plastic Omnium’s suppliers in three daily deliveries. Gefco will store and configure the parts to specification when called off by Plastic Omnium for delivery to its Omega South facility in Warrington. Previously the parts were moved directly to Warrington.
Gefco is also providing final-mile transport between its Halewood warehouse and the Omega South plant.
Plastic Omnium supplies components including bumpers and tailgates to a number of carmakers in the region, including Jaguar Land Rover.
“This new agreement is testament to the outstanding services that we are providing to customers through the Halewood site,” said Julian Pluchon, logistics manager at Plastic Omnium. “Following a number of recent contract wins, we are now maximising the potential of the facility and fully serving tier one businesses in the automotive sector with our full breadth of expertise.”
Gefco’s key account manager, Jason Stirling added: “We have a close and long-standing partnership with Plastic Omnium, and the strategic location of our state-of-the-art Halewood facility has been central to securing this latest project.”
Cradle trackingIn separate news, Gefco has also announced partnerships with Actility and Wakeo to more accurately track the cradles used to deliver motorcycles from assembly plants to dealers in Europe.
Actility provides long-range wireless connection devices that communicate with Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. Wakeo provides real-time visibility platforms for business-to-business multimodal transport flows.
According to Gefco, the motorcycle cradles are not easy to track and are sometimes lost or stolen, which reduces manufacturers’ fleets and leads to delivery delays. Gefco is working with Actility and Wakeo to solve those problems and streamline cradle management.
Smart trackers with a battery lifetime of more than seven years have been provided by Actility and installed on the cradles to provide positions with an accuracy of three metres. Tracking data is then collected via the long-range wireless networks and analysed on the Wakeo platform.
“The integration of these two innovative solutions will give Gefco customers a comprehensive overview of their flows,” said Emmanuel Cheremetinski, executive vice-president inland at Gefco.“They will benefit from real-time, predictive, cost-effective, energy-efficient and sustainable solutions for managing logistics resources and complex supply chains.”
