VF Europe in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, is part of VF Corporation, the mother company of Eastpak and The North Face, among others. At their Sint-Niklaas location, they distribute The North Face across Europe. The large volumes, which vary seasonally, must be sent out quickly and usually in rapid succession. The complexity has even increased with the growth of e-commerce in the last few years.
“We really wanted to automate the yard access as quickly as possible. We have had a lot of issues in the past with the multitude of languages being spoken by drivers. We either had to use Google Translate, or ask someone from production or shipping who could speak the required language. Both of those options took too much time, and it made communication very difficult”, says Nathalie De Munter, OEMEA Operations Manager by VF Corporation.
The busy parking lot is now a lot quieter. Not because there are less orders, quite the contrary, it is the holiday season at the time of this interview, but because trucks get in and out faster.
“During peak periods, we ship from early in the morning until late at night and even during the weekends. But we no longer need to fully staff our reception desk. One person is enough because drivers now register themselves.”
“We chose the QuickStart bundle from Peripass, because it is quick and easy to implement, and it fits our budget”, said Nathalie. “We talked to a colleague from Peripass, and they helped us with our questions. That being said, the rental kiosk arrives already set up, so we only had to configure some small elements that are unique to our processes.”
“If something changes in our process, we can easily adjust the QuickStart ourselves.”
The drivers are also quick to catch on and use the kiosk themselves. “It is very rare that a driver needs help with the process, most move through the registration with ease.”
The dashboard has been customised to match the loading docks of VF Europe. Nathalie is taking us through their flow. “When a driver registers on the kiosk, we see the reference number, time of registration and the carrier appear in the queue list. Then, you can just slide it to the appropriate gate where it needs to be loaded. The driver then gets a message and knows he needs to go to Gate Three.”
VF Europe and our drivers really enjoy using the rental kiosk and the QuickStart bundle of Peripass.
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