Planning centre simplifies clients' logistics needs

The logistics sector continues to face a number of big challenges, with the ever-increasing fuel price perhaps the most serious. Compounding this issue are the escalating costs in labour and electricity, while the average consumer is spending less and less. The combination of these factors results in the age old tug of war in terms of pricing between transport service providers and the industries they serve, says Naudé Rademan, managing director for CCS Logistics, a major cold store operator in Africa. “The questions must then be asked: Is collaborative efficiency identification not the most sustainable answer? And how available is the information that will identify these efficiencies?" Rademan points out that transport costs are a significant cost contributor for all food manufacturers, importers, exporters and the majority of retailers, and therefore continue to be an attractive optimisation strategy for companies that operate in these sectors. CSS Logistics introduced a transport service just over a year ago in response to its clients’ identified need for a combined service that covers the complete handling, storage and transport process. At present the company owns and operates 13 refrigerated warehousing facilities spread throughout the major centres and harbours in South Africa, Namibia and Angola. “Offering a transport service was a logical expansion of CCS Logistics’ national storage facilities which manage volumes of nearly 660 000 tons of produce per annum,” adds Rademan. “In addition to expanding CCS Logistics transport division’s role to provide continuous optimisation for parent company Oceana, the new service introduces our customers to one point of contact and accountability for all their warehousing and transport requirements.” While the words efficiency and optimisation have been bandied about in the world of logistics for a very long time, Rademan believes tangible results can be achieved through the creation of absolute transparency in terms of key performance indicators and associated costs of the logistics. “In other words, in addition to providing our clients with information that will save them money, we are now offering them a single point of contact and access to our newly developed logistics planning centre as well. “The planning centre takes on full execution responsibility, through careful consideration of cold chain and cost accountability from point of product collection to the staging in one of our primary cold stores, and finally up till the point of delivery,” he said. “By doing this we effectively simplify our clients’ logistics needs and enable them to further capitalise on their efficiencies by providing transparent reporting and critical information in real time. “Ultimately all of this has a major impact on the pricing issue – in other words they get more favourable rates,” said Rademan.