Short sea car carrier UECC partners with Quintiq

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — Today’s sky-rocketing bunker prices, increasing vessel prices, shifting car production locations, and the dynamics of short sea operations with very short lead times make it complex for carriers to achieve operational excellence.

As a result of these challenges, UECC, an automotive short sea carrier in Europe, has announced that it has chosen Quintiq, a provider of advanced planning and scheduling APS solutions, and its implementation partner, Ab Ovo, to provide a key performance-driven planning and optimization solution for its Europe-wide operations.

“Customers are asking us for cost-efficient solutions, to reduce operation cost, for increased flexibility and capacity, and for more real-time information sharing. With Quintiq we can provide customers with optimal solutions, (as well as) improve operational efficiency and reduce cost in our value chain,” says Craig Jasienski, managing director of UECC.

Quintiq will provide UECC with complete transparency throughout its network-wide planning chain. According to a combined company statement, planners will get decision support based on real-time KPIs, visualized on their personalized screen, enabling them to make optimal planning decisions while being able to tune the plan even at the last minute.

The Quintiq technology is intended to improve communication between fleet operation and customer service processes, enable efficient planning of cargo to vessels, and provide full visibility to all planners and logistics staff. Additionally, UECC is expected to optimize vessel setup and utilization, by taking into account, not only the cargo to be shipped, but also the capacity at the individual terminals.

Development began in mid-June and expected ROI savings will start as early as four months after going live, according to the company statement. The standard Quintiq technology will be implemented by Ab Ovo and will cover planning of cargo to multiple vessels, forecasting and vessel planning. Furthermore, the Quintiq APS platform is purported to enable UECC to optimize future terminal and VPC (vehicle processing centres) operations, in an integrated solution.

Arjen Heeres, COO at Quintiq says: “The extreme dynamics of short sea trading requires a flexible decision support system with parallel optimization capabilities. We are very proud that UECC has chosen our standard planning and optimization technology to support their aspirations and help them realize their goals.”

“As a short sea logistics market leader, and an operator of several major terminals, UECC recognizes how advanced technology and expert knowledge can help it overcome industry-wide challenges,” says Ronald Bolijn, CTO at Ab Ovo. “Beyond streamlining automotive shipping logistics, the Quintiq technology can also bring significant benefits to terminal operators by enabling them to understand how long cargo will stay on berth so they can optimize space allocations for quickest possible loading.”