Quality Managers meet in Athens

From March 29 to 31, the Militzer & Münch Quality Management Conference was held in Athens. The Quality Managers of the Militzer & Münch Group discussed optimization potential and defined new strategies of quality assurance.

“Preparing for things ahead: Transition from risk to chance” was the motto of the conference that united 20 local and regional Militzer & Münch Quality Managers in the Greek capital. “When it comes to Quality Management, we need to be flexible and to improve continually”, says Dr. Lothar Thoma, CEO M&M Militzer & Münch International Holding AG. “To this aim, we keep an eye on the tendencies and developments of international logistics. That way, we can individually tailor our services to meet each customer’s requirements, and always offer the highest quality.”

 

 

New Quality Management norm

Focus at the conference was on the transition to the new Quality Management norm. The current DIN EN ISO 9001:2008 standard expires in September to be replaced by DIN EN ISO 9001:2015. Militzer & Münch is going to implement the new norm in the course of this year. The major changes:

 

  • Quality strategy and quality objectives have to correspond to the strategic orientation and the context of the organization.
  • Customer orientation includes new target groups.
  • A process-oriented approach and comprehensive, systematic process management gain more importance.
  • Group Management is to be more committed to Quality Management.
  • For risk management, organizations will have to identify, analyze and evaluate risks and chances; counter-measures have to be designed and implemented.
  • Knowledge management: a systematic management of knowledge is required. The knowledge necessary to execute processes has to be determined, maintained and made available to all employees.
  • With the new norm, digital communication is allowed. So far, a printed version of a manual to document Quality Management was required.

Higher customer satisfaction

To assure quality, DIN EN ISO 9001 uses a PDCA cycle approach (see illustration). “Once the PDCA cycle has been gone through, it begins afresh”, says Kadir Kizkapan, head of Group Quality Management, M&M Militzer & Münch International Holding AG. “By constantly checking, we guarantee the continual improvement of the quality of our processes and thus higher customer satisfaction.”

Identifying risks

Another central topic at the conference was risk management. “At an organization that operates internationally like Militzer & Münch, various potential risk factors have to be taken into consideration for the specific countries”, Kadir Kizkapan says. “In their function, our Quality Managers therefore observe numerous political, socio-economic, ecologic and cultural aspects of their specific regions.”

Big success

The conference ended with a preview to the year 2017, with the participants discussing the pending changes, and the objectives of the Militzer & Münch Group. Kadir Kizkapan says: “We are very happy with the result of the conference. Our Quality Managers drew up highly promising suggestions and approaches to optimize quality assurance at Militzer & Münch.”

Transparent supply chains

Interesting lecture: at the Board Dialogue 2017 in Hamburg on April 6, Dr. Lothar Thoma, the CEO of M&M Militzer & Münch International Holding AG, gave a speech on “Global Supply Chain Partnerships”. Managers, directors, supervisory and advisory board members were in the audience. The speech discussed the question how a control tower can contribute to a logistics company mastering the challenges of today’s economy in the best possible way and offering the customer a transparent supply chain.

Globalization and the staking out of free trade zones, digitalization and industry 4.0, political and economic eruptions and upheavals – how to seize opportunities in this world that increasingly becomes more complex? A question that haunts politics, industry, economy and trade – and of course also logistics. Especially from logistics, supply chain management across all borders into the most remote regions of the world is expected. And even here, customers want to check per mouse click at any time where the goods they have ordered are at the moment.

Owing to digitalization, shipment tracing has already become possible in most developed markets: per mouse click, the customers can access the desired information concerning their delivery process. Based on end-to-end networking, modern supply chain management shows every step in the transport across country borders.

Showing the transport chain

Militzer & Münch guarantees end-to-end supply chain management to the remotest areas – also without being able to rely on the usual IT structures. With big-dimensioned projects or challenging transports, Militzer & Münch places so-called control towers at the customer’s disposal. These control towers consist of a team of experts where for the sake of superordinate coordination and planning, all threads are drawn together. Control towers would provide the necessary infrastructure for end-to-end supply chain management, said Dr. Lothar Thoma in his lecture. Via email and phone, the employees are in intensive contact with the carriers, and enter the data in a data bank. Thus, the entire transport chain is transparently traceable for the customer.

Control tower for a Kazakhstan project

Using the example of the transport of a complete production line for a float glass factory to Kazakhstan, it is easy to demonstrate how the strengths within an organization can be bundled, and coordinated with the help of a control tower. All in all the entire Militzer & Münch door-to-door project took ten months. Transports from three continents and eleven countries had to be organized. Each shipment had to be exactly synchronized with the customer’s assembly schedule. The freight comprised 8,000 tons of fire resistant material for the construction of the melting furnace, plus 700 additional container loads of equipment.

The multi-modal transport of the containers via vessel, train and truck took between 14 and 30 days depending on place of origin and transport mode. All contracts and transport documents had to be drawn up in accordance with the (tariff) regulations of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) comprising Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Various country units within the Militzer & Münch Group performed the different processes the transports went through during the project. The responsibilities of the control tower for this project lay with selected employees at the Stockstadt location.

Bundling forces

The control tower comprises the Militzer & Münch country units and also involves the cooperation with partners. To bundle forces inside and outside the organization, Militzer & Münch would bank on partnerships, Dr. Lothar Thoma emphasized. Internally, across the entire TransInvest Group, as well as with third parties in Europe and worldwide. By collating competencies, bundling strengths and creating functional networks, extraordinary and big projects can be mastered successfully. Also possible gaps in the IT structure can be bridged that way.

Under the umbrella of TransInvest Holding, Militzer & Münch cooperates with sister companies such as the InterRail Group, a specialist in CIS rail traffics, on a regular basis. Apart from that, Militzer & Münch has entered and developed cooperations with external partners for decades.

Chances offered by the New Silk Road 

The combination of control tower and strategic partnerships is also important in relation to the New Silk Road. The Chinese government invests several hundred billion US dollars in the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) to boost the revitalization of the trade lanes around the old Silk Road. In the Central Asian neighboring countries, numerous infrastructure projects can be expected, and with them great potential for logistics companies to optimally handle far-reaching projects with intelligent supply chain management.

Board Dialog

Board Dialogue (German: Board Dialog) is a regular event of the Board Academy for managers, directors, supervisory and advisory board members. It took place for the seventh time in April 2017. The Board Academy is an initiative for qualification, integrity and social responsibility in supervisory boards and advisory boards. With a certification program, it prepares managers, directors, supervisory and advisory board members for the challenges at the modern-day board workplace.

More information: www.board-academy.com

Boosting growth – with road transports

Whether from East to West or North to South – many transit routes cross Poland. So for Militzer & Münch, adding road transportation services to the portfolio of the Polish M&M air sea cargo S.A. was a logical step. 

In mid-January, Radoslaw Brejnak joined Militzer & Münch in Poland as Manager Road. From the Warsaw office, he will set up sales and operational structures for the new business segment during the initial phase of the project. Plans are to set up road departments also at the Kraków and Wroclaw locations.

Radoslaw Brejnak is a logistics expert and has many years of experience in business development and in the road segment. He is optimistic that Militzer & Münch will profit from Poland’s dynamic development of the logistics market, especially of the road freight sector. As many transit routes lead through Poland, the intensive cooperation with other Militzer & Münch country units is part of the plan.

 

Militzer & Münch Poland’s road services include full truck load, groupage and part load shipments – both in import and export – temperature-controlled transports and the transport of dangerous goods (ADR) as well as express and just-in-time delivery.

In transit

Poland has long been a transit country for international transports. As far back as in ancient and medieval times, important trade routes crossed the country in Central Europe, such as the Amber Road and the European leg of the Silk Road. Today, numerous transports of goods traverse Poland. The Polish government is planning to invest several billion euros in the development of road infrastructure by 2023.

More capacities for industries

Tailored concepts for the Swiss industry: In January, the Militzer & Münch Basel team took on experts for transports to Central and Eastern Europe to expand the service portfolio.

From Basel, Militzer & Münch has long handled air, sea and road transports for Swiss customers. The Basel location was opened over 30 years ago. The services comprise global goods transports with a focus on Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus region, the CIS, Turkey, Greece and Maghreb. Groupage, part loads and full loads as well as worldwide import and export container shipping are offered to internationally operating customers.

In order to be an even stronger partner to Swiss industry, Militzer & Münch decided to expand their existing portfolio. Transports to Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia are in high demand, especially with the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The new employees are all specialists in Central and Eastern Europe and have lots of experience with these regions. They come with the optimal prerequisites to develop concepts for individually tailored transports to the four countries and to offer comprehensive consulting services to their customers.

Basel is regarded as a center of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Situated in Central Europe, it is an optimal point of departure for international transports headed eastwards. Therefore, Militzer & Münch banks on a long-time partner: the groupage cooperation CargoLine.