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Forward stocking proves to be a success formula

29 June 2020 | 

Access to the proper stock material at strategic locations, evenly distributed throughout the Netherlands. Our colleague Robbert van der Schaaf explains that outsourcing the stock management activities for local warehouses storing essential railway materials has several advantages.  

Quicker and cheaper

In 2020, warehouses for maintenance contractors and malfunction service staff are still widely used. Having shorter arrival times, malfunctions are solved faster. As soon as the products are collected from the warehouse, they are scanned and registered. This registration is sent to our “central” warehouse in Hilversum, the Netherlands, where our co-workers immediately get to work. This way, the maintenance staff always has access to what they need, because the stock is automatically replenished. Moreover, costs are saved since surplus or obsolete stock is prevented.

Watch the video to see how it works:

Stock on Site – a lasting success formula

Our customer makes full use of the “Voorraad Op Locatie” (VOL), or Forward Stocking Location (FSL), in Zwolle. Because of its success, we have set up several additional locations for other railway contractors. In total, we now control 14 local warehouses throughout the Netherlands for maintenance contractors and malfunction service staff in various Performance Based Maintenance areas.

Performance based maintenance areas: what are they?

PBM-areas were introduced to improve the quality of railway maintenance. For each PBM-area, a maintenance contract is allocated, following a public tender. Striving for the continuous improvement of the availability and quality of the railway infrastructure, ProRail (Dutch National Infrastructure manager) puts the emphasis on pro-active maintenance. This approach is based on the principle of “prevention is better than the cure”, which needs a different way of working. It means that the technicians are primarily focused on the origin causes of the problems in order to prevent future malfunctions. The duration of these contracts is 10 years. During this time, the contractor company is free to use its own methods in achieving the desired results. This creates an incentive to innovate. By now, research has shown that in PBM-areas, the number of malfunctions has largely decreased.

Sharing our knowledge during the Material Management Training

Good stock management is especially important. Having too many materials in stock increases the costs and could also cause waste. If stock items are lacking, the maintenance staff  has to wait before the problem can be solved. In our tailor-made training, we teach companies and/or colleagues how they can optimize their stock management and thereby save costs, always maintaining availability of materials.

Are you interested in more information about how we can realize Forward stocking solutions for you and optimize your stock policies? Or are you interested in our Material Management training? Do not hesitate to contact product manager Robbert van der Schaaf and/or our international sales department.