About the organisation
Kien Logistics Management is a Dutch company that emerged from the supply chain and logistics activities of Farm Frites and is at home like no other in the European and global logistics of fresh and frozen food products. With increasing transparency as the new standard in today's business operations, supply chain efficiency, flexibility, and chain-wide visibility in quality, costs, and services are becoming strategically important.
Challenge(s)
In line with today's platform economy, in which the network function of companies is becoming increasingly important, Kien was looking for a working Control Tower solution for the daily planning and coordination of worldwide container transports of frozen potato products. The Control Tower also had to fulfill the ever-growing visibility needs of clients regarding:
• Sailing Schedules (STD / STA)
• Transshipment performance
• Schedule performance (ETA / ATA)
• Customs inspections / clearance
• Terminal planning / congestion
• 'Dwell Time' on terminal
An important condition for the Control Tower was the high degree of flexibility to make adjustments and the openness to integrate easily and quickly with external platforms and systems.
Solution(s)
Kien has discovered that there is no “off-the-shelve” Control Tower application for sale and therefore has chosen to use the Mendix low-code application development platform and model-driven integration platform eMagiz to realize a Control Tower himself. Together with the CAPE Groep, an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) approach was chosen. Based on this approach, the construction of a fully working, first version of the solution has started. Based on the backlog, minimal effort, maximum analysis, learning and further development. So we go from the minimum viable version to the optimal adult version of the Control Tower. With this approach, Kien has delivered value quickly, and the development team learned whether the choices made were to their liking.
Benefits
With Mendix and eMagiz, a Logistics Control Tower has been realized, and the predefined needs have been fulfilled step-by-step. Low-code application development has not only contributed to the speed of delivery but very specifically brought business and IT together, resulting in a high 'first-time-right' level, which is needed to realize ambitions.
Control Towers collect data from various information sources (systems and platforms) and translate this into valuable information and KPIs. The integration platform eMagiz securely and quickly facilitates various integration patterns. This way, Kien always has the right information at the right time, which is crucial in its primary process and overall business operations.
“Our Control Tower offers us the opportunity to create predictability in the chain,” says Michiel Brokke. “Through data, potential events in the chain can be identified in advance so Kien has insight into the impact of the overall performance (proactively identifying possible bottlenecks and determining consequences for the operation). The customer can now be given choices about how he wants order(s) sent”.
Example: Maritime service providers compared based on performance
The maritime sector has a bad reputation for ships arriving on time. In 2018, only 62,3% of ships sailed on schedule. Logistics service providers such as Kien have difficulty contracting the best carriers based on quantitative KPIs for the various destinations. A generic framework has been developed for Kien through scientific research so they can assess their carriers based on predetermined KPIs.
