CENTRAL WIRE Industries UK Ltd

CENTRAL WIRE Industries UK Ltd

With 14 locations in 3 countries and over 750 employees, CWI is a leading manufacturer of specialty alloys in nickel, stainless and red metal and its components including ropes, cables and strands.  They have the widest range of finishes and packaging available on the market today and are devoted to delivering quality and maintaining the highest of standards.

POST BREXIT

“The beginning of the year after Brexit has been a challenging time for all companies that export across Europe.  As approximately 75-80% of our shipments are road freighted into Europe, this was a difficult period for us as a business.  Although we have always sent shipments across the globe using air and sea and are familiar with the documentation required, it became apparent that haulage companies were going to struggle with the demand on submitting documentation to customs before collections could be arranged.

Most of our customers didn’t understand the new procedures or indeed appreciate the extra work and cost involved, nor did they have any brokerage in place to enable to clear the goods once they finally left the UK.  For the first 3-4 months we struggled with rising costs and transit time delays which our customers could not accept with some suggesting they were going to take their business elsewhere.

After some conversations with our Italian agent, she informed us that another UK client of theirs were able to reduce transit times drastically back to around 1 week which was similar to pre-Brexit.  They did this using regime 42/40 supplied by Simarco.  Obviously after hearing this, we were keen to see if any of Simarco’s services could benefit our business.  After some discussions with the knowledgeable team at Simarco the details of regime 42/40 were explained, and we soon realised that this was the way forward for our company.

TESTIMONIAL

Since this time, we have moved practically all our European haulage to Simarco.  We now have a fixed price schedule in place for our regular shipments into Europe, our customers are happy because transit times have reduced by around two thirds, and they have no extra paperwork and VAT issues to deal with.  We continue to have a good relationship with Simarco shipping to Europe twice a week with volumes growing due to the increased order book we have developed.

We would like to thank Simarco for their continued support.”

Andrew Jebb – Logistics/Warehouse Manager

Kurt J. Lesker

Kurt J. Lesker is a leading global manufacturer providing high-quality vacuum products and systems.

TESTIMONIAL

In January 2021, following Brexit and the agreement reached on Christmas Eve 2020, we started to ship goods into the EU following the guidance of the government at the time. However, from our customers perspective, they found that there were delays caused by companies who were not as well prepared for Brexit as they should have been, including courier services, and due to the backlog, there was various communication breakdowns when fees were due on parcels causing them to be delayed, and in some cases, sent off to be destroyed. Some other customers also objected to the additional fees they were being asked for despite the deal being reached as they understood it meant goods moving between the UK and the EU would carry less fees, but in reality, it only affected goods that originated in the UK being sent into the EU, or EU origin goods being sent to the UK.  An EU origin part being shipped back to the EU is not applicable to the deal that is in place.

As a company, we found ourselves in a difficult position with some of our larger customers because of this, and we needed a solution whereby our customers could continue to enjoy the high level of service they get receive from our company without the hassle caused by Brexit for extra paperwork and / or fees that needed to be paid for duty and VAT.

Working with various solution providers, we were introduced to Simarco as a possible partner to work alongside a France based finance company who were registering us for an EU VAT number so that we could become the Importer of Record (via DDP Incoterms) for the goods under Regime 42/40 (once we had a VAT number), and strategically absorb these costs for certain key customers who were having issues clearing goods into the EU. Simarco held our hand through the process, checking paperwork was correct, highlighting areas for improvement for smoother transition, as well as coordinating with clearing agencies on our behalf.

They have listened to our needs for our own processes as well, and together we now have a smooth process and several successful shipments into the EU as a result – both Via UPS France for redistribution, and direct shipments to some customers for larger shipments. They even helped us retrieve an item that was misrouted to French Guiana instead of France (via another company) which really helped us in a difficult position.

The staff are attentive, fast responding, and knowledgeable, and my only regret is that we didn’t know about them sooner!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their help in these difficult times – because without them, things would have been a lot tougher.”

Richard Whitehouse

Compliance & Commercial Manager EMEIA

Toupret

TOUPRET, leader in fillers for professional painters and decorators, building and construction professionals and DIY enthusiasts.

RE-BRANDING

2021 sees a step change in the growth of Toupret in the UK with a complete re-branding of their entire product range and entry into new customers such as Wickes and Travis Perkins to add to their existing portfolio including Screwfix, Toolstation, PPG, Dulux Trade Centres, Crown, Brewers as well as smaller independent outlets.

WAREHOUSING & DISTRIBUTION

To facilitate the stock build of their new branded range to hold until the launch, while continuing to supply their old product range, we had to accommodate a significant uplift in pallet storage to hold both old and new range simultaneously. We invested over £80k in new racking installation in Q1 to create the space to hold the new range until product launch at the start of Q2.

This increased our inbound pallets from an average of 250 plts / month in January and February to over 900 pallets received in March, subsequently increasing our pallets in storage from 900 pallets to over 2,000 pallets. Our pick quantities also increased from an average of 3,000 cases / wk to nearly 4,500 average for April, and now settled at approx. 3,800 / wk.

By the end of May all customers had transitioned onto the new range with the exception of Screwfix and Toolstation, who will continue to order and run down the old range until September when they will also then move across to start ordering the new range.

The new racking area also gave us the space and scope to be innovative with the system and physical set up of our pick faces, setting up double deep and, in some cases double wide pick faces. Using a customer forecast by product we were able to create pick faces of varying sizes to enable as a minimum, a full days’ picking volume direct from pick faces without the need for any replenishment during the picking process. If replenishment is required, then it can be replenished from the aisle behind meaning the picking can continue without interruption. This also enables us to support peaks in volumes with additional resource from elsewhere in the operation without needing them to be forklift trained.

RETAIL MARKETING OPERATION

To support the launch of the new branding, the Toupret Marketing department asked us to implement a bespoke, non-warehouse environment, samples and marketing operation. They are being much more pro-active in the marketing of the new branded products running competitions in trade magazines and sending samples and merchandise out to journalists in the trade, so wanted us to operate a small, very customer focused area where items are individually packaged with accompanying letters from Toupret presenting a very personalised service offering.

We were able to convert an area in our Freebournes Road site, previously used on another contracts sampling operation, into a dedicated, more retail-based environment for this Marketing operation.

The customer was delighted with the result and with the obvious care and pride taken by the team when setting up the products in their new area.

TESTIMONIAL

It has been a very busy few months for the Toupret Contract with a great team effort to deliver all the changes and support our customer with their increased levels of service they are providing to their customers. Special note goes to Kirsty Eaves, Warehouse Office Manager, and Rob Lucas, Warehouse Team Leader, who have worked very closely to coordinate their teams’ efforts to set up and implement the new product range and the Marketing operation and thank you to Hannah Birchall from Stoke Depot for the system and physical support during implementation.

This has really helped to cement our relationship with our customer over recent months, and we look forward to supporting their distribution and growth for years to come.

Mike Dart, Toupret UK’s Commercial Logistics Manager has re-enforced this, saying “the Simarco Team have done an excellent job in setting up, receiving and shipping our new product range. It’s made a refreshing change to work with a flexible logistics provider”.