June 26 - Logwin has handled two large transportation projects for the Krefeld machinery and plant manufacturer Siempelkamp; delivering an entire factory for the production of MDF boards to Thailand, plus a machinery press for truck chassis beams to India
MDF board manufacturers require plants with glue-mixing stations, hydraulic presses and handling equipment for the finished products. Around 50 percent of engineered wood boards around the world are manufactured on machinery from Siempelkamp.
One of these production plants is currently being constructed for a manufacturer of MDF boards in the city of Rayong,Thailand. Most of the components come from Krefeld, where Siempelkamp has its headquarters. The company manufactures other parts in Wuxi near Shanghai.
Logwin transported the plant components to Thailand via the ports of Hamburg and Shanghai. 150 heavy cargo elements with a total weight of almost 6,000 tonnes were shipped by sea, in addition to around 150 containers with smaller components.
Other parts for the plant were manufactured by European suppliers, and Logwin arranged for these to be transported by partners via Genoa, Helsinki and Gothenburg. It took 12 voyages to carry all the plant parts to Rayong.
"We had to make countless phone calls before all the shipments were finalised," recounts Manuel Pohl, project manager ocean freight export at the Logwin business segment Air + Ocean. "You can't complete a project of this size without perfect coordination."
Logwin received Siempelkamp's initial enquiry at the end of July 2011, and the final ship reached the port of destination in Laem Chabang, Thailand's largest port around 80 km east of Rayong, earlier this year.
It was from here that Logwin organised the two-hour truck drive to the construction site. Despite detailed planning it was at times necessary to rethink arrangements quickly. "The empty truck drove to the port on the day before the ship was due to arrive in order to test the route for transportation," explains Pohl. However, no information signs had warned that a four-inch layer of asphalt was going to be laid overnight. The result was that a bridge was too low for the loaded truck to pass the next day. "We had to change the route at short notice, but the massive cargo still arrived on time."
Siempelkamp estimates that the plant in Rayong will be fully constructed and ready to produce wooden panels sometime this summer.
In India, Chennai will soon have a new vehicle production plant and Logwin delivered components for a machinery press to form truck chassis beams on behalf of Siempelkamp in the winter of 2011/2012.
Logwin transported a total of thirty 40-foot containers and 400 tonnes of individual parts. The two largest of these weighed 95 tonnes each and had a volume of 85 cu m.
"One of the project's biggest challenges was finding a break-bulk ship with sufficient capacity in time," says Pohl. "Heavy lift ships sailing to India are usually full, since a great many production sites are currently under construction there." However, this did not impact the schedule. "The construction of the new plant is making good progress thanks to Logwin's excellent logistical arrangements," says Ronald Hammerbeck, logistics manager at Siempelkamp.
Logwin undertook its first transportation project for Siempelkamp 13 years ago. Over the past 18 months the two companies have intensified their collaboration. Logwin has arranged some ten transport projects for Siempelkamp in this time in addition to regular imports and exports by air and sea freight. Logwin also manages cross-trade shipments and transportation within Asia on Siempelkamp's behalf, also supplying Siempelkamp facilities around the world with replacement parts by air freight.
