01/11/2017 | IT/Logistik
DACHSER SE, Kuchenmeister GmbH

More efficiency and maximum flexibility

 

Baked goods manufacturer Kuchenmeister has built a new warehouse. As partner and “subtenant”, Dachser ­ensures efficient distribution along with full ­capacity utilization of the Kuchenmeister fleet.

Founded in 1884, the family-owned business Kuchenmeister GmbH is a food manufacturer with headquarters in the Westphalian city of Soest. The large bakery which is in the hands of the fourth generation, generated € 265 m in 2016 and, with around 1,000 employees, produced around 102,000 metric tons. In Germany, Kuchenmeister is the market leader for ready-made cakes and the global leader for baumkuchen and Christmas stollen. Deliveries are made to 80 countries; exports make up 35 % of corporate revenue.
Dachser started working for Ku­chenmeister out of the Herne logistics center as far back as 1998. Initially, this was only groupage for the Soest facility around 70 km away; seven other production locations and subsidiaries in Germany were added later. In 2014, Kuchenmeister and Dachser began an entirely new chapter in their relationship. To sustain further growth, the Westphalian baked goods producer decided to build its own modern warehouse on the grounds of a former sugar refinery in Soest, just under 6 km from the production site. The resulting temperature-controlled food warehouse measures 10,100 m2.
According to Hans-Günter Trockels, Managing Partner of Kuchenmeister, the logistics requirements for baked goods are strict: purchase orders on short notice, sell-by dates, the seasonal nature of many products, or reliance on consumer habits. The new warehouse in Soest now allows the com­pany to better respond to these.
“At Kuchenmeister, we produce only made-to-order goods; we don‘t do advance production,” says Trockels. There are generally only four to five business days between the order date and shipment. “This means being as flexible as possible, both in production and in distribution.”
A flexible and efficient solution has now been worked out together with Dachser – to the benefit of both parties. Kuchenmeister operates the largest section of the new food warehouse itself. Dachser has rented 2,000 m2 for its own storage units. As a logistics provider, Dachser uses its own staff and IT to schedule its inbound and outbound goods and controls loading – both for Kuchenmeister and for other customers in the region that use the Dachser warehouse.
Kuchenmeister also uses its own fleet in the warehouse partnership primarily to offset fluctuations in production. The cooperation with Dachser is now the way to keep 23 trucks at the Soest warehouse fully occupied. Supplying retail outlets through your own vehicles alone is no longer an option these days. Trockels says that trips used to be made to customers once a week, but now daily deliveries are expected. This means a lot of smaller deliveries that would be uneconomical. “We have to completely reconceive logistics and the use of fleets if we want to come up with unconventional, customized solutions in association with the logistics provider,” says Trockels.

 

Neutrality with respect to third-party customer

In North Rhine-Westphalia, the candy industry is very strong, and Dachser Herne has a lot of its members as customers. On-site shipment bundling is therefore one of the greatest advantages of the Soest warehouse for the logistics company. Goods from Kuchenmeister and other customers from the region are combined into the same deliveries and transported directly to the retail outfit’s central warehouse. “The Kuchenmeister fleet is included in daily planning,” explains Dirk Alexander, Sales Manager at the logistics center in Herne and Dachser‘s coordinator on the project. “We always remain neutral with respect to third-party customers. All customer data are stored and processed exclusively in Dachser‘s systems, even if everything is in the same terminal.”     •

 
 
 
 

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