Everything flows
A stable, organic connection: GF Piping Systems and DACHSER have been cultivating their business relationship for almost two decades now. Most recently, they celebrated the tenth anniversary of their collaboration in Northern Europe, a milestone, in Jönköping, Sweden. The DACHSER warehouse in Jönköping connects one of the world’s leading manufacturers of safe and reliable piping systems with the Scandinavian markets.
Just turn on the faucet and out comes the water—for drinking, cooking, washing, or brushing your teeth. We often take this simple, everyday process for granted, but in fact it’s a technological challenge. After all, the water is expected to flow from the tap in a clean, safe, and reliable way and with plenty of pressure. This requires sophisticated technology working in the, pipes, fittings, pumps, sensors, and measurement technology for quality assurance make it possible. It is this sophisticated technology that GF Piping Systems, based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, specializes in.
This division of Georg Fischer AG is the leading flow solutions provider for the safe and sustainable transport of water, chemicals, and gases. Employing 7,686 people worldwide and with annual sales of CHF 1,971 million (2021), GF Piping Systems offers over 60,000 products as well as complete system solutions. These include fittings, valves, pipes, automation, manufacturing, and connection technology.
For GF Piping Systems, working with DACHSER made logistical sense—literally. The DACHSER branch in Steißlingen, near Singen, is a mere 30 kilometers from GF’s headquarters in Schaffhausen, which is also where all the global logistics of GF Piping Systems comes together.
An organic relationship
“It all started with individual groupage or partial load transports for GF Piping Systems to Italy or Austria,” remembers Zlatko Boskovic, General Manager of DACHSER in Steißlingen. “Step by step and country by country, we were able to expand our collaboration, including contract logistics. The key to this was combining shipments from the warehouse with shipments from the production facilities of GF Piping Systems in Switzerland on the same day.”
"Step by step and country by country, we were able to expand our collaboration, including contract logistics", says Zlatko Boskovic.
Fredrik Rånge, Warehouse Manager at DACHSER in Jönköping, was the right man for the job. The 50-year-old family man is a DACHSER veteran and a dyed-in-the-wool logistics expert. Growing up, his parents ran a transport company. In three decades, Rånge says, he has done and experienced everything from transport and distribution to warehousing. “And my enthusiasm just keeps on growing,” he grins. “Every day, I come into work with a smile on my face.” This is in part because he knows that he won’t be at his desk all day. “I like working with the warehouse staff.”
“Every day, I come into work with a smile on my face”
About ten years ago, this spawned the Swiss piping experts’ decision to set up a distribution center for Northern Europe in Jönköping, Sweden, together with DACHSER. “Our goal was to be able to supply countries in the Nordic region—not just Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland but also more ‘exotic’ places like the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland—quickly and directly,” explains Andreas Jasko, Head of Global Supply Chain at GF Piping Systems in Schaffhausen. “For that, we needed professional solutions in the areas of warehousing, picking, and packing as well as in transportation.”
Fredrik Rånge, Warehouse Manager at DACHSER in Jönköping, was the right man for the job. The 50-year-old family man is a DACHSER veteran and a dyed-in-the-wool logistics expert. Growing up, his parents ran a transport company. In three decades, Rånge says, he has done and experienced everything from transport and distribution to warehousing. “And my enthusiasm just keeps on growing,” he grins. “Every day, I come into work with a smile on my face.” This is in part because he knows that he won’t be at his desk all day. “I like working with the warehouse staff.”
Close collaboration
Rånge isn’t the only one in Jönköping who’s enthusiastic about work and customers’ needs. “We always call our warehouse ‘sun side’ because people enjoy working here. And we’re quite proud of that,” Rånge says. This helps explain why the core team at this multi-user warehouse, which can accommodate 5,000 shelf spaces, 3,000 pallets, and over 500 pipes for GF Piping Systems, has remained virtually unchanged since the facility first opened in 2011. “Because we have very low workforce turnover, our processes are well oiled and benefit from our staff’s deep mutual understanding and valuable experience,” Rånge says. “We know and appreciate each other.” In saying this, he is referring both to the products and the market of GF Piping Systems as well as to the people on both sides.
Just how close GF Piping Systems and DACHSER have grown can be seen from the fact that Rånge doesn’t have to go far to reach the customer. The office of Thomas Hammarback, DC Manager at GF Piping Systems, is just one door down the hall. Rånge explains the extraordinary degree of collaboration between customer and service provider with the following words: “Every day, we work together to deliver 100 percent of the service level all over again.” Jasko sees this as yet another sign of particularly close and mutually appreciative collaboration in this customer/service provider relationship: “Fredrik Rånge can put himself in our shoes as if he were a GF Piping Systems employee himself to achieve the optimum in service and speed. In other words, everything that describes the ideal warehouse logistics manager. So for us and also for the GF Piping Systems companies on the ground in Northern Europe, he’s an essential part of our joint success story.”
Today, DACHSER supplies the entire Scandinavian market for GF Piping Systems from the distribution center in Jönköping: Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. “We keep most GF Piping Systems items in stock—anything needed for building and maintaining water, gas, and fluid pipes,” Rånge says. The portfolio of some 10,000 products range in weight from ten grams to heavy loads of up to five metric tons.
To handle these products, DACHSER has built a stable supply chain from GF Piping Systems factories throughout Europe to Sweden. For the most part, however, shipments go directly from Schaffhausen to Sweden via the DACHSER branch in Steißlingen. This means between six and ten full northbound truckloads per week.
Reliable under pressure
“Piping systems and the many related products always put a lot of pressure on the supply chain,” Rånge says. Time pressure is common at building sites, and maintenance work or leak repairs typically require fast, on-time delivery of materials. “If there’s a leak, for example, fitters need the right tools and replacement parts ASAP—sometimes every minute counts.”
This is why most shipments in Jönköping consist of pick and pack items. “Scandinavia is far less densely populated than Central Europe. For us, this means smaller batches, especially with flexibility in distribution,” Rånge says. “Everyone at DACHSER understands that delivering this kind of contract logistics relies on us maintaining our high standards of punctuality and maximum reliability. This way, the customer enjoys the full benefits of the extremely effective and well-balanced DACHSER network.” To keep everything flowing whenever a tap is turned on and supply commences. As a matter of course and with all necessary precautions in place.
