IMCD Consolidates in Antwerp

After many years of fruitful cooperation in Germany, IMCD outsourced its entire distribution logistics for Western Europe to Talke at its site in Zwijndrecht/Antwerp (Belgium) in November 2009.

IMCD and Talke have been working together since the early 1970s, when IMCD was still known as Interorgana. It started with the carriage of commodities such as PVC and polyethylene, and much has changed in the more than 30 years since this collaboration began. Talke has gone from being simply a transportation partner to become an integrated logistics service provider, and the trading company Interorgana has become the IMCD Group, one of the largest suppliers of chemical, food and pharmaceutical ingredients.

Efficient Logistics: The Key to Company Expansion

"Reliable deliveries keep both customers and their suppliers happy," said Stan Bijsterveld, manager supply chain Europe at IMCD. "We are handing over our logistics to a carefully selected partner, which means that in terms of performance we are only as good - or bad - as our logistics service provider.

New Warehouses and Proven Technology

About 4,000 m² will be required for the processing of the 13,000 deliveries a year (equivalent to approximately 25,000 tons). There are currently 1,000 m² available in the existing warehouses, and an extension increased this by 3,000 m².

One of the ways in which Talke will maintain its high level of service provision is through the establishment of very close links between its own SAP-based ATOS (Alfred Talke Operations System) and the PeopleSoft applications of IMCD. This has been in operation since 2007 for the existing IMCD business at the Hürth site. It includes fully automated processing of orders and status feedback, as well as the barcode-supported handling of goods.

At the Köln-Niehl logistics centre, which belongs to the Hürth site, Talke handles up to 18,000 small deliveries for IMCD every year. These vary in size from 20 to 1,000 kilos and comprise 2,000 different products belonging to a wide range of hazardous material classifications. This means that mistakes resulting from the manual input of orders or the accidental picking of an incorrect package are avoided, and at the same time, processing is streamlined.