 Service engineers represent around one-third of all Jungheinrich employees. |
Jungheinrich says moving its central spare parts depot in 2013 has resulted in clients reaping the benefits of a highly efficient delivery service for original spare parts.
In September 2013, the Hamburg-based company transferred its central spare parts depot and spare parts management from Norderstedt to a new spare parts centre at Kaltenkirchen
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"This move took Jungheinrich's spare parts logistics to a whole new level," says head of after-sales services Dirk Schulz. "This has made us the trendsetter for our sector of industry."
The project was planned and implemented by the Jungheinrich Logistics Systems division and actively supported by the Automatic Systems and Spare Parts Logistics Systems departments as well as the Jungheinrich sales centre in Hamburg that is responsible for the north German area. The Warehouse Management System (WMS) and control technology were developed in-house. Based on its high level of automation, productivity at the Kaltenkirchen spare parts centre increased 60% a year after going into operation.
By building the spare parts centre at Kaltenkirchen, Jungheinrich says it has laid the groundwork for an even better fulfilment of future market requirements. This includes 24-hour delivery readiness, 365 days of the year.
Schulz boasts: "Our new spare parts centre will guarantee an even faster and more efficient supply of spare parts worldwide."
The investment for the Kaltenkirchen centre totalled EUR35 million (USD40 million). Built on property spanning 65,000 sqm (699,654 sqft.), the warehouse covers 22,000 sqm (236,806 sqft.) of floor space and includes a 31 m (102 ft.) high rack storage area. The facility can store over 65,000 warehouse articles in a total of 110,000 storage slots.
At a rate of up to 1,000 positions per hour, the centre can deliver spare parts to many different time zones (the Americas, Central Europe and Asia).
"This has helped us clinch our competitive advantage in the spare parts business, and we have already succeeded in increasing the availability of original spare parts for our globally active clients to a rate of over 98%," Schulz explains.
To guarantee the high rate of availability, Jungheinrich also relies on its own global network of service engineers.
The company says it employs software-driven route planning for extremely fast reaction times and the shortest possible distances to the client. According to Schulz, the company just hired its 4,000th service engineer.
"This allows us to improve the density of our service network and guarantee a high level of operating security for our clients," he says.
Service engineers already represent around one-third and the after-sales service division almost half of all Jungheinrich employees, which numbered about 12,500 by the end of 2014.
Jungheinrich's After-sales Service division achieved revenues of over EUR700 million (USD794 million) in 2014, contributing about 33% of total group sales.
Separately, Jungheinrich will introduce a new generation of lithium-ion batteries with a capacity of 240 and 360 Ah at LogiMAT 2015 next week. During CeMAT 2014, the company had unveiled a prototype of the new energy storage system. Developed in the group's Energy and Drive Systems division, the batteries can be charged for a complete shift in just 30 minutes.
Dr Klaus-Dieter Rosenbach, member of the Jungheinrich board of management in charge of engineering, says the batteries "represents a milestone for the further refinement of energy storage systems for the entire field of intralogistics".
The new lithium-ion batteries are especially suited to large battery-powered platform trucks and order pickers. Jungheinrich says they can one day replace conventional lead acid batteries with considerably higher capacities.
Jungheinrich will introduce its new battery solution together with the ECE 220/225 horizontal order picker at LogiMAT 2015 in Stuttgart, Germany next week.