Zeppelin Rental Builds its Business on AX4
Equipment rental and construction logistics specialist Zeppelin Rental uses AX4 to organize shipments of its construction equipment and attachments. AXIT is a specialist for cloud-based IT solutions for the management of supply chains.
Zeppelin’s 120 locations in Germany use the IT platform to assign and coordinate the transport of its high-tech rentals to customer sites. Three carriers and two parcel service companies are linked to the system, and preparations are currently underway to link an overnight express service provider as well.
Zeppelin uses a standardized process to send out over 1,000 rental equipment items to customers each month with AX4. It’s easy to calculate transport prices, shipping options, and equipment delivery dates in advance, because all the rates and master data of the linked logistics partners are stored centrally on the AX4 platform.
Zeppelin insisted that AX4 be able to integrate with its proprietary IT system. AX4 uses web services to ensure a smooth exchange of data between the two systems. Zeppelin’s employees continue to work in their familiar interface and don’t need to learn their way around various supplier portals. Nor is there any need to set up and manage users.
“Using the digital solution of AX4 to manage our transports helped us unlock large potential savings in our processes,” said Michael Schmidt, Head of Logistics at Zeppelin Rental. “Before, each of our offices booked transports with different regional carriers. Today, it all follows a clearly laid-out process that begins with the automated price query.” Another benefit: Using AX4 to standardize transport assignments allowed Zeppelin to centralize its invoicing and transport audits as well.
Digital transport management also offers advantages in communications with the carriers. The platform is used to generate waybills, barcode labels, and consolidated lists. AX4 even makes it possible for managers at Zeppelin Rental’s headquarters in Garching outside Munich to monitor the activity of all its field locations and see the latest status of any shipment at any time. “This transparency allows us to use of our assets more effectively. We can also optimize the regional distribution of transports to minimize our environmental impact. Because the best transport is the one you can eliminate through good planning,” concluded Schmidt.
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