Working together for the future” has always been the integrative concept of VTG Europe. The aim is to harness the core competences of the individual divisions as a common strength so as to boost efficiency while simultaneously gaining more scope for their own core tasks.

As an early adopter, VTG Rail Logistics has been implementing this since 2016 in the field of transport management and functioning as a service provider for VTG Rail Europe. The centerpiece of this collaboration is organizing empty wagon freight. The need for such movements arises when wagons must be taken for revision or to the customer, when scrapping is planned, or when repairs are due.

“Since Rail Logistics is responsible for these transports anyway, it makes sense to offer this as an in-house service, too,” says Peter Appel, Procurement / Sales Single Wagons, when describing what prompted this change. “We were the first to have an interface between Rail Logistics and Rail Europe.” Prior to 2016, Rail Europe handled these tasks on its own and contracted external suppliers directly and on a flat-rate basis.

“The advantage of this now is that we will be able to come up with a lot of solutions,” Peter explains. “That doesn’t happen when the service is handled by a single external company.” The resulting range of savings and opportunities for more precise planning will be huge.

Orders at the touch of a button

Peter Appel and Holger Erdmann, who manages the Block Train department, are responsible for route planning, collaborating with various rail operators, disseminating information, and even price conditions – throughout Europe. “We take care of everything technical so that Customer Service can take care of the customers and we always offer the best solution,” Peter notes.

As a result of careful planning, annual sales now amount to around €10 million and VTG has risen to become one of Rail Logistics’ top 10 customers in Germany. While the volume for single wagons is roughly 14,000 per year, that for block trains is around 100 to 120.

Customer Service initiates the orders in WAMOS! at the push of a button, and then Operations takes over. That’s when five colleagues in Greece come into play and create the orders. In doing so, the team relies on a lot of creativity and (forwarding) manual labor. Communications-related digitalization is being advanced together with partners – whether it relates to waybill data, wagon positioning or communications within VTG itself.

Individually planned transports

The manually planning includes determining which route will be taken, which special features there will be, and what the progress of the transit will look like. “It’s a huge and persistent challenge,” confirms Michael Babst, who calls the shots as head of CoC Industrial Goods (CoC-I). “Each transport is individually planned and commissioned. And, on top of that, the transports have to be inspected and later settled. The amount of effort involved is enormous.”

For Peter and Michael, the goal is to get the best out of VTG together with their colleagues from across Europe as well as to optimize the processes in regular feedback rounds.