Moving Europe

COVER STORY
16 DACHSER magazine
After delivery, ...
... scanner identification and ...
... goods handling ...
... are timed to-the-minute
product family (targofix, targospeed and
targoflex), with clearly defined transit and
delivery times. In the case of high volumes,
direct scheduled services from the individual
branch offices provide planning security.
“Where volumes are not sufficient to justify
a daily direct departure, we consolidate the
loads at the Eurohubs, combine them with
regional consignments and integrate them
into the daily goods flow, while ensuring optimal
capacity utilization,” Schilling explains.
Gap-free network
The principle is modelled on the hub-andspoke
system that is widespread in logistics.
“If you follow a spoke from the rim to the
hub, there are myriad possibilities for distribution
in every conceivable direction,” says
Wolfgang Janda. It must be possible to reach
all the nodes in the network from every
branch office reliably and at all times, he adds.
“That’s the difference between a system
based purely on branch offices and an efficient
network. This is why we are aiming in
future to link all of Dachser’s European
branch offices to the three Eurohubs.” The
Eurohub locations in Überherrn, Bratislava
and Clermont-Ferrand were specifically
chosen with a view to making the pan-European
Dachser network accessible in all directions
via 24- or 48-hour connections. This
will be based on uniform rules for the hubs
and the individual countries, with the same
accounting system and the same EDI data
interchange. “This way, the hubs become
enablers in a gap-free network configuration,”
Janda says. While meeting Dachser’s
growth targets at the same time.
“Growth is not an end in itself, but should
always be geared to the benefit of our customers,”
Bernhard Simon, the head of
Dachser’s management board, points out.
“Via the three Eurohubs, we connect some
160 destinations in 30 European countries.
Platform freight services now offer all branch
offices systems-based forwarding possibilities.”
And the volume is impressive: Europewide,
Dachser currently operates 2,825 systems
freight services itself, with a further 800
offered via its partners. Since April this year,
the Eurohub in Bratislava connects 14 countries
between the Baltic, the Adriatic and the
Black Sea: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria,
Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Austria, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia,
the Czech Republic and Hungary. Cler-