Freight optimisation for Ideal Standard

Headquartered in Belgium, Ideal Standard is a leading manufacturer of products and solutions for private and public bathrooms. They have a global design centre in Milan, innovation centres in UK and Germany and production hubs in Bulgaria, Egypt, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, the UK and France.

Challenge

Ideal Standard were looking for a partner that could support them in developing a European 4PL solution. The solution’s primary aim was to manage all inbound freight movements from Asia and Egypt across sea, air and rail. With two decades of experience, Ligentia was chosen to work alongside the Ideal Standard team.

Our Solution

Having identified a number of areas where we could support Ideal Standard, Ligentia put in place a number of solutions, including:

• In order to optimise freight procurement, we carried out a rail inventory optimisation study and investigated new ways to optimise sea freight
• Modelling Ideal Standard’s current flows with the strategic aim of determining the future optimal DC network, which included closing three European DCs and opening a single new DC in Germany
• Implementing our state-of-the-art technology, which offered seamless integration with SAP and greater visibility and control of Ideal Standard’s supply chain

Results

• The rail optimisation study we carried out resulted in the first successful movement of containers (a total of 22) by rail from China into Europe, at a cheaper rate than air freight
• Our consolidation projects in Asia reduced freight cost per unit by reducing small shipments; load optimisation was improved by increasing container utilisation
• Ideal Standard’s savings are forecast to be £488k; our European network study resulted in 23% savings ($8.7m)