Operations Technology & Solutions Engineering at Kuehne+Nagel

Logistics Designer simulates logistics networks

Corporate group Kuehne+Nagel’s central Division for Operations Technology & Solutions Engineering completes multifaceted projects in planning and simulation. The division uses Logistics Designer to model networks in certain projects.

As a logistics service provider, Kühne+Nagel takes charge of a wide range of functions in network and supply chain engineering for its customers. The company issues conceptual recommendations to meet customer needs and then implements these either as LSP with tasks integrated into the customer’s own network, or as a neutral LLP. The Division for Network & Supply Chain Engineering, seated in Luxembourg and Delhi, supports both approaches. Logistics experts have direct contact to customers for questions of contracting and lead logistics solutions and are also available to other departments within the corporation for in-house service.

Wide Range of Projects in Network Simulation

Here Logistics Designer is used in various projects for purposes of network simulation. These may be small projects lasting ten days, up to strategy projects that cover years. One important area is to plan and generate bids for specific customer networks. Network planers organize individual offers by combining specified demands and determining the correct tariff and invoicing information. Logistics Designer is then used to simulate various network configurations and calculate exact prices. Price stability is secured by reliable and detailed calculation, the assessment of quantity fluctuations, and routine controlling.

Logistics Designer is also used to improve running projects with long-standing customers. Present circumstances are first mirrored by the software. This then enables discovering and assessing potential savings related to changes in organization and prices.

The Division for Operations Technology & Solutions Engineering has currently completed about 20 projects involving Logistics Designer. These include the network simulation, price calculation, and continuous improvement of a high tech network involving 300,000 shipments per year; a project for planning the sophisticated network in an industrial branch having 20 cross docks, and a revised call for bids for a Scandinavian network of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) with particular attention given to comparing tenders.

Software creates transparency and standardizes the workflow

Logistics Designer provides network planers with a joint tool that achieves transparency in projects and standardizes the workflow. "We use Logistics Designer for strategic transport management. Combined with order data, it creates detailed models of customer networks", explains Dirk Handschur, Head of Corporate Network & Supply Chain Engineering at Kühne+Nagel. Increased use of Logistics Designer is planned for the future. The goal is to model not only organization and shipping orders, but also to simulate the effects that changes have on locations and stock.