Transport

Case Study: Jan de Rijk Logistics

Jan de Rijk Logistics, founded in 1971, is the European market leader in international air cargo transport. It is one of Europe’s leading providers of integrated logistics services, offering warehousing, international transportation, and distribution services. A strong and well-developed network of 17 offices across Europe, 750 professionals in 9 different countries, and a fleet of over 800 vehicles enables Jan de Rijk Logistics to provide extremely high levels of flexibility in the deployment of its assets, and meet new demand and peak loads quickly and efficiently.
Business Challenge

Jan de RijkAs a leading logistics provider, Jan de Rijk continuously strives to achieve the highest levels of efficiency and effectiveness in the execution of its logistics services and meeting the service goals of its customers. Today, these customers demand that the company take full accountability for the design and management of a total logistics chain. A logistics company’s ability to successfully offer a “total responsibility” concept is perceived by suppliers as a critical benchmark in the performance standards of logistics service providers.

To meet this challenge and achieve a significant competitive advantage, the first step is to integrate all vital business processes. To accomplish this complex and critical step, Jan de Rijk chose TIE as its strategic business partner.

Solution

TIE worked very closely with the technical and business teams of Jan de Rijk to provide a Business-to-Business Integration solution based on Microsoft BizTalk Server. The solution not only supported the integration of the company’s internal business processes, but more importantly enabled direct connections between the business processes of Jan de Rijk and its customers. Said Willem Heeren, Managing Director of Jan de rijk: “When selecting software to optimize our business processes from the operational to the strategic level, it makes no sense to limit this step to our own organization. By seamlessly connecting the processes of our clients to those of Jan de Rijk, we achieve the highest cost savings and optimize the service to our clients. TIE supports our process within the environment of our clients, so we can focus on our business instead of losing valuable time on technical issues.”

Results

The TIE solution allows Jan de Rijk to realize objectives at the strategic and operational levels. First, it delivered complete transparency of the logistics chain, enabling an intensive information flow between Jan de Rijk and its customers. Initially the electronic data flow was limited to the electronic submission of orders, status reports, and invoices. Second, it provided a solid and straightforward way of connecting customers’ business processes to those of Jan de Rijk, using an advanced “plug-and-play” solution. Given that the enablement of business process integration at the side of the customer is fundamental to success, TIE was able to provide a plug-and-play solution that realizes business process integration in a quick and easy-to-implement manner. In addition to saving valuable time and resources, it saves the customer painful headaches. Time no longer needs to be spent managing connectivity to Jan de Rijk.

TIE’s solution serves as the heart of Jan de Rijk’s extensive logistics connectivity suite, which supports and integrates all logistics management and execution. The relationship between Jan de Rijk and TIE has advanced over the years to become of strategic importance, with the common objective of exploring how TIE solutions can help the company expand its leadership and competitive edge in the logistics marketplace. It is an example of how Business-to-Business Integration can exceed the limited benefit scope of cost savings and a fast return on investment.

“TIE delivers a substantial contribution to optimize our processes and drastically reduce the overall time necessary to connect a client to Jan de Rijk. The flexibility of the Microsoft BizTalk Server based TIE solution assures that IT will substantially contribute to the business relationship between Jan de Rijk and its clients.”

-John Adriaensen, IT Manager of Jan de Rijk