European agricultural machinery maker Case New Holland (CNH) has contracted logistics provider Gefco to move a consignment of tractors to Australia for the first time.
Gefco will move between 260 and 280 tractors in containers to three Australian ports this year: Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The tractors will be loaded into containers at Gefco's subsidiary in St Valentin, near CNH's assembly facility, before being put onto rail at Enns in northern Austria for shipment to the port of Bremerhaven in Germany. From there, they will be shipped to Australia. The overall journey time is seven weeks.
"The big advantage for CNH is that the tractors, once they are at the destination, are ready for immediate use after minor assembly work,” said Peter Vanek, managing director of Gefco Austria. This assembly work involves the reattachment of tyres and bumpers, which are removed for containerisation.
Two tractors can be loaded in each 12.1-metre container, along with the disassembled parts.
"There were only a few weeks between the initial offer and the order start date,” said Vanek. “This was actually amazingly fast and bears witness to a good, proven cooperation.”
Gefco has been providing services for CNH since 2012 and started using containers to move the machinery maker's products earlier this year. It has also been providing inbound services for CNH, including the sequencing of production parts for the CNH plant in St Valentin.
