DHL Freight, one of the leading providers of road freight services in Europe, has signed a contract with Toyota Material Handling Group, the leading brand of material handling equipment, to provide transportation of their newly launched line of racking systems from the suppliers to the company’s customers’ sites all across Europe, including the UK.

Starting in September 2015, materials for a wide range of racking solutions, including conventional and high density pallet racking systems, as well as shelving and other non-palletised racking systems, will embark on their journey to new warehouses via various transport solutions provided by DHL Freight’s network.

“When we recently launched our latest line of racking solutions, it soon became clear that we need a partner who has the knowledge and capabilities to design and implement a solution in perfect synchronisation with the project plan of the site. We are committed to offering high quality solutions that are perfectly tailored to the warehouse storage requirements of our customers. One of those requirements is that the goods arrive exactly when they are needed. DHL helps us deliver on our customer promise,” said Hans Larsson, Director Logistics Solutions, Toyota Material Handling. 

Since on-the-day delivery was a highly important criterion for Toyota Material Handling, when designing the solution, DHL involved experts in transport planning and pulled in various IT tools used to manage the flows for customers in the automotive sector.

Transport management for highly diverse cargo and critical delivery timelines call for thorough planning and creative solutions,” says Stefan Brunner, Global Sector Head Automotive, DHL Freight. “We understood the customer needed a Pan-European solution. Therefore, we pulled together the expertise of the countries and tools we use when designing sector specific solutions to meet our customers’ expectations.”

Besides the on-the-day delivery, the extreme diversity of the cargo is also a challenge. The equipment varies from small boxes to full size 13 metre long racks. Material for one single warehouse installation may also come in from different locations in Europe. DHL Freight consolidates the parts and delivers them on the agreed date. To ensure a smooth process and exact delivery times, the transports are carefully planned and scheduled in collaboration with Toyota Material Handling and the warehouse site. In the course of this project, DHL will transport over 90,000 tonnes of freight.