Project transportation is one of the most interesting areas of logistics. It involves not just transport, engineering, and customs, but often legal, economic, and sometimes political issues as well.

That means project managers should have so-called “soft skills” along with an in-depth knowledge of project logistics. Indeed, flexibility, stress tolerance, creativity and the ability to manage time are integral success factors in this industry.

Although the goal of a carriage project is of course carriage, transportation is not the hardest part of the processes involved. Executing such a project may take one week, for example, whereas its preparation can take up to six months. For examples of such projects, we spoke with AsstrA Wood and Paper Logistics (AWPL) Project Head Ekaterina Sellas and Anait Vasilyan, Head of the Customs Department.

In September 2018, AsstrA received an application from a major client manufacturing pulp and paper products in the Volga region of the Russian Federation. The project involved delivery of a set of highly specialized biological treatment facilities. This equipment was intended for water purification after its use in pulp, paper, and cardboard production processes. The equipment needed to be shipped from Finland to Russia. Due to the size of the cargo, there was a convoy fleet of 30 trucks.

For the transportation of this type of project cargo, the client required customs clearance assistance. AsstrA experts gladly took on this task.

Transporting unassembled high-tech equipment requires a special goods classification decision from the Russian Federal Customs Service before the customs clearance procedure starts. It must be sent to the customs authority where clearance of the transported equipment will be made.

The AsstrA team completely took over the procedures related to obtaining this decision for the client. The properly prepared declaration was successfuland quickly resulted in one HS code and a 0% duty.

Preparation for the submission of this application for a classification decision took 3 months. Considering the savings on the declaration of each component, the convoy, certificate preparation, declarations of conformity, permits and other shipping documentation, the preparation time was 100% justified – and maybe even more. One document made it possible to simplify the entire procedure, save on the payment of customs duties, and issue all 30 machines with equipment without delay. Getting a classification decision was a simple solution for this complex task.