maenhout erp logistique : navitrans et navipwms

Transport par lots et messagerie
Entreposage
120 camions, 200 remorques, 60.000 m2 d'entrepôts
85 utilisateurs pour le transport, 35 utilisateurs
pour la logistique de l'entreposage
Solutions utilisées :
NaviTrans depuis le 01/01/2002
NaviPWms depuis le 01/02/2003

" Maintenant, nous pouvons augmenter nos volumes sans augmenter la charge de travail.

De même, nous avons pu réduire rapidement la charge de travail de nos collaborateurs.

Durant ma carrière, j'ai connu 5 installations différentes de logiciels et je dois admettre que cette installation a été la meilleure et la plus flexible de toutes. "

André Maenhout

NaviTrans provides the tools necessary for managing transport companies

In order to be able to modernise and better administratively support the steady growth of the company Transport & Logistics Maenhout, one of the company's directors, André Maenhout, decided in December 2000 to thoroughly renew the existing IT infrastructure. His choice of software was the administrative transport package NaviTrans from the Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner YOUNG & PARTNERS. The implementation of NaviTrans was successfully completed on 1 January 2002. In January 2003 - after a new implementation project by YOUNG & PARTNERS - the 60,000 m² of warehouse space at Transport & Logistics Maenhout will also be managed via Navision technology.

More than 80 years of transport experience

Transport & Logistics Maenhout was founded in 1920 and is one of the largest Belgian family firms in the transport sector. The company is active in distribution in the Benelux, as well as in international transport and logistics. Maenhout currently has a fleet of more than 300 trucks, and in the Benelux it handles over 2000 distribution shipments a day.

For international transport Maenhout has agreements with foreign partners and performs transport jobs to and from Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Germany, France and Spain (import and export of full loads, partial loads and groupage).

Along with transport, the company also offers logistical services. Since 1968, under the leadership of Henri Maenhout, managing director of the group Transport & Logistics Maenhout, the capacity of the distribution warehouses has been steadily expanded, until they now have a surface area of 60,000 m².

Maenhout has an Alpha, Beta and Gamma warehouse, suitable for storage of goods in warehouses, on shelves (via fork-lift trucks with radio frequency control) and goods handling. Palletising, labelling, stock control with stock overviews, inventories, statistics and histories are also among the services offered by Maenhout.

Modernisation via specialised and adaptable software

In order to give the group's continuous growth an efficient administrative backbone, André Maenhout together with his ICT manager Bart Verhelst decided to completely renew the existing hardware and software. With regard to the software, in December 2000 and January 2001 a thorough selection procedure was performed among the best-known software suppliers. The choice ultimately went to the specialised administrative transport package NaviTrans from the Microsoft Certified Business Solutions Partner YOUNG & PARTNERS.

"The choice wasn´t an easy one, but finally NaviTrans, with its several transport modules and integration with Navision, was selected as the basis for further specific developments in accordance with Maenhout´s needs," says André Maenhout.

"The Navision software allows company-specific adaptations to be done in a fast, user-friendly way. Moreover, YOUNG & PARTNERS took a very professional approach in the preliminary study and demonstrated that it has sufficient transport experience in house."

NaviTrans is an administrative software package for transport companies that was developed in November 2000.

The package uses the standard software package Microsoft Navision from Microsoft Business Solutions as a basic tool and was developed on a Windows platform. Along with the basic features of Navision, NaviTrans includes a series of modules which meet the branch-specific needs of the transport sector. Thus, jobs can be processed within a dossier concept or individually, manually or automatically, before or after execution, etc.

The ride management also gives all of the information for monitoring and completion (loading and unloading bay, date, hour, weight, etc.) of transport jobs. Documents such as CMR´s, ride sheets and file sheets can be easily printed out, etc.

NaviTrans also provides the tools necessary for managing transport companies. The built-in MIS (Management Information System) permits one to make clear cost/benefit analyses per sales order. Extensive statistics per customer, period, driver, truck, subcontractor, etc. clearly show the business manager the results for each transport job. The entire implementation project was finished on schedule on 1 January 2002. The 85 users at Transport & Logistics Maenhout currently perform the entire business administration and transport management via NaviTrans.

André Maenhout evaluates the implementation project positively: "The introduction of Navision and NaviTrans sharply improved the entire business and transport administration, including invoicing, transport rates, ride

New challenge: the management of 60,000 m² of warehouse space

Following the implementation of NaviTrans, in July 2002 Transport & Logistics Maenhout decided to also modernise its warehouse management via the Navision technology. To achieve this, YOUNG & PARTNERS will implement a specialised module for warehouse management which on the one hand is coupled with NaviTrans, and on the other communicates with the administrative software of Daikin Europe NV, a producer of air conditioning systems which is a major customer of Maenhout. Daikin Europe is established next to the industrial buildings of Transport & Logistics Maenhout in Ostend. The systems of Daikin Europe and Maenhout remain fully independent of one another, however. They will only automatically exchange certain orders and data via a fibre optics cable which connects the systems. The entire project will be completed in January 2003. The new system will replace an obsolete computer system for stock control.

"We opted for Navision because the system proposed by YOUNG & PARTNERS did the best job of meeting our requirements, which were especially stringent in the area of warehouse monitoring and control," says André Maenhout. "The other systems we looked at could only fulfil them after a large amount of customisation. Moreover, choosing the same software naturally brings benefits like easier maintenance of the software and better data processing."

Ultimately, Transport & Logistics Maenhout wants to further expand the possibilities of the system with a "Tracking and Tracing" of orders via the Internet, and by linking the system with route planners and direct communication via GPS with the vehicles.