Bram Van Coillie, Stow Group’s Warehouse Manager, has worked for Stow for seven years and has witnessed the company’s growth up close. Including the site in Dottignies. “In the early years, we shipped about 95,000 tonnes of coils a year from Dottignies. By comparison, today we ship about 160,000 tonnes a year. So the number of incoming and outgoing trucks has increased enormously, resulting in unsafe situations and many trailers. The parking area is limited in size, but expansion plans are underway. The first request for Peripass, four years ago, still under the name Behind The Buttons, was to do something about truck access control, especially in the context of security and given the growth.”
Safety is the main motivation for Stow to implement Peripass at the site. “Our main goal was to protect our staff by limiting their number between trucks. It used to be that people would meet the drivers in the car park, walking back and forth, to inform them personally about who was and was not allowed to drive in. The implementation included installing barriers, rolling out the Self-Service Kiosk and tailoring access control to Stow’s needs. Automating access also allowed us to improve the efficiency of our employees.
“It used to be that people would meet the drivers in the car park, walking back and forth, to inform them personally about who was allowed to drive in or not.”
“The current process is not yet fully autonomous, but that is a conscious decision because we wanted to hand over and check the paperwork ourselves anyway. For inbound, they want to receive a signed delivery note; this is done on the quays. For outbound, this is done in the office at the logistics information point. In the initial phase, we didn’t want to change this yet.”
“Inbound and outbound have increased tremendously in recent years, leading to unsafe situations. The initial request was therefore to do something about truck access control, especially in the context of the safety of our employees.”
“The trucks arrive at the site, where drivers register on the Peripass platform. They receive a PIN code to access the site through a turnstile and barriers. They register at the information point and receive the necessary paperwork. They then return to their truck and are notified by text message when they can drive in and where to go. Drivers can enter the premises using the PIN code they have received. When they drive back out, the paperwork has to be signed off and in some cases an additional check has to be made on securing the material or a check of the delivery note. They can leave the premises with the same PIN code generated by the Peripass platform.”
“Drivers register on the Peripass platform and receive a PIN to access the site.”
“In the meantime, our needs have changed, which means there are many new developments in the pipeline. The registration process is not yet fully automatic. Using Peripass gave us a better understanding of the needs. We want to move to a system where physical contact between reception staff and truck drivers is no longer necessary.”
“Through the use of Peripass, new needs have become clear and new developments are in the pipeline.”
“In many companies, steps will now be taken quickly to eliminate contact completely. Stow also needs to eliminate initial interpersonal contact. Not only because of Covid-19 and health reasons, but also because we are dealing with 12 to 14 different languages. Because we still maintain face-to-face contact, despite using the Self-Service Portal, this still leads to communication problems, sometimes resulting in frustrations and heated discussions. We want to get rid of that completely.”
“We want to communicate more with drivers via text, but preferably via images. There is now a solution to that: all information is presented visually on the Self-Service Portal and must be ticked off. Safety instructions and/or general instructions for entering the premises: releasing air suspension when driving in to avoid hitting the overhead crane is a typical example. By digitising operational instructions and safety guidelines, we can better track who has accepted our guidelines.”
“Now all guidelines are only provided on paper, but nothing is signed. Therefore, we will be much better covered in the future because the ticked-off list can be shown to the carrier itself. In case of a dispute, we can perfectly prove that the drivers have indeed agreed to our required guidelines. This is all in the pipeline now and we need to get this done soon so that we can work more this way.”
“What we also want to roll out in the short term is to set up separate dispatch dashboards for the different locations on the site. Currently, all logistics activities are displayed on one dispatch dashboard, with a physical person manually dispatching between the different loading and unloading docks. We want to split this up and provide a separate dispatch dashboard per gate: each operator or employee manages a gate or loading bay and can see and manage their own registered trucks. This way, we can avoid the role of ‘sub dispatcher’.”
“At the moment we are not working with inbound planning yet, but in the future we want to use Peripass for that: we want to use the platform to monitor the distribution and occupancy of loading docks.”
“We are not working with inbound planning yet, but in the future we want to use Peripass to monitor the distribution and occupancy of loading docks. Or by working with standard exports, with Excel pivot tables or in Peripass. For this, we still need to prepare the drop-down menus internally for the Self-Service Portal.”
“We find that when we let drivers enter text freely, names and names of carriers are spelt in all sorts of different ways, which prevents clear lists from being created for reporting. By working with a drop-down menu with pre-filled information that only needs to be ticked, it becomes possible to analyse the data much faster and easier. We also intend to include this in the next upgrade currently underway.”
“Besides the content, the link with SAP also needs to be prepared. We are currently rolling out the current version of SAP across all sites in the group to work in a uniform, automated manner. After that, we will upgrade all sites to S4Hana, the latest version of SAP. We are looking at how to free up the necessary resources to make the real connection between the two platforms and Peripass.”
“The next steps are currently being discussed with the Peripass Customer Success team: the ongoing project integration with SAP, avoiding physical contact at reception, further automating access control and setting up separate dispatch dashboards. New sessions are planned to see what Peripass can do, but also according to the resources available in Stow’s SAP team. Revisiting the product in detail to see what else we can use has proved worthwhile for us. It brings us closer to an autonomous registration process.”
“Reexamining the product in detail to see what else we can use has proved worthwhile for us.”
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