TRW Automotive’s premium freight movements in Europe will now be handled by Roberts Europe across 12 countries following a contract signed between the two companies at the end of February. Full implementation of the service is expected within the next four to six weeks.
TRW makes a range of vehicle control, electronic and safety systems across 74 facilities in Europe and Roberts Europe, which has 20 years experience as a premium freight specialist, will now handle deliveries inbound to those facilities as well as from them to TRW’s OEM customers.
Time-critical shipments are arranged via road and air from Robert Europe’s base near Maastricht-Aachen airport in the Netherlands using an international network of contracted carriers. All of the company’s processes, including traffic control and fleet management of its integrated European network are centralised here.
The company also has branch offices in Portugal, Poland, Hungary and Romania.
TRW expects production rates in Europe to decline 2% in the coming year from 2009 levels but has reported an upturn to its overall business as it benefited from cost-cutting measures and a 20% revenue gain in the fourth quarter of last year.
In other news, albeit of a slower-pace, TRW Automotive recently took delivery of 64-metric ton Schuler servo press at its Alfdorf facility in Germany.
The machine was loaded by crane onto a heavy-goods vehicle with 18 axles traveling on a detour route of 35km overnight to avoid narrow stretches, bends and other restrictions. The journey, which was hampered by snow and ice, and required a police escort, took five hours.
“Such heavy loads can only be transported by road between 10pm and 6am with police accompaniment. Otherwise, the disruption to traffic would be too great and hard to calculate,” explained Uwe Rosenauer of Schuler’s customer service team.
Once at the facility German crane supplier Helling, which was involved in the movement of the press, then removed the roof from the Alfdorf facility in order to lower it into place, as it was too large for access through the facility’s entrance.
