TS Customer case · Meever & Meever
We also handle the logistics of international subsidiaries
Steel specialist Meever & Meever connected our OpenTMS to its ERP and grew from fifteen to twenty up to around fifty transports a day.
A steel specialist
With several worldwide subsidiaries, Meever & Meever is a well-known name in the steel industry. The international family business is a genuine specialist in producing, storing, processing, renting out and trading steel products, and of course transport is part of that. Since early 2022 they have used our transport management system for this, which we integrated with the ERP they use for their stock and financial processes.
More than just transport
Toine Slob has been responsible for the logistics of Meever & Meever since 2015. His role is always hectic and every day is different, but that unpredictability is precisely what he enjoys, because they do more than just organise transport. When they sell steel materials such as sheet piling or bridge piers, his team first ensures these are produced or in stock, for which they are in constant contact with the factories abroad. Once the material is ready, they arrange the transport down to the last detail, agree the right arrival time with the recipient and carefully handle the invoices from both the carrier and the factory.
From stock management in Excel to the ERP
The stock locations of Meever & Meever are spread across Europe, with coordination resting with Toine’s team. Previously this was done in Excel, highly error-prone, especially because they work with remnant lengths and part of the steel often has to go back into stock. When you take three phone calls in between, or several people work in the same document, stock discrepancies arise on their own, and they had to count everything two or three times a year to check whether it still matched. Because the company sets itself apart precisely through enormous stocks and can deliver specific dimensions immediately, in 2019 they moved from Excel to an ERP for professional stock management and fast financial handling.
Getting transport out of Excel
Meever & Meever also handles the logistics for several subsidiaries: each of them buys steel products from the company and sells them worldwide, and all those order lists were likewise processed in Excel. When Toine first started they handled around fifteen to twenty transports a day, but over the years this nearly doubled to sometimes as many as fifty a day, which made this way of working untenable. Small mistakes were lurking and it cost an enormous amount of time.
Choosing OpenTMS
A planning module could have been developed within the ERP, but that came with a hefty price tag, so Toine set out to find an alternative. He did some Googling, called around his network and visited the ICT & Logistiek trade fair, where he got to know Filogic and was immediately enthusiastic. What he likes about this TMS is its flexibility: they have no complicated routes, so optimisation in that area is not needed, but they did want more efficient planning and digital transport orders. Filogic was able to easily downsize the software to exactly the functionality they need, and there was an instant click with the people, the feeling was simply right.
Integration with the ERP
Since early 2022 the steel specialist has worked with our OpenTMS in the cloud. All the packing lists previously filled in by hand in Excel, and the eCMR they used to create themselves, are now generated automatically. Salespeople from the various subsidiaries submit an order through the ERP, Toine’s team checks it and forwards it to the TMS with a single click, after which the order is ready for the carrier in no time, in Dutch or English. The OpenTMS also offers a clear overview of the planning, a digital freight file showing exactly what was loaded per vehicle, and an eCMR with a consistently uniform, professional layout.
A handy distribution portal
In addition, Filogic developed a handy distribution portal for Meever & Meever, which will soon be offered as a standard extra option on the TMS. With it, the loading depots in Belgium, Poland and the Czech Republic now receive only targeted information: from a tablet they download the right waybills and any other documents, sign them digitally and store them in the file, so manual scanning is no longer needed.
A recommendation
Toine closes with a compliment: he certainly recommends Filogic to companies running into the same challenges they once faced. Without a TMS things can go well for quite a while, but as a company grows it becomes increasingly difficult. You talk about it first, do some Googling and perhaps put it off a few times, but a moment inevitably comes when you really have to act, and then it is important to choose the right company. That is clearly what they did.
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