Career
Japan is one of the world’s most economically developed countries. The basis of Japanese industry is high technology. Expensive Japanese chips and machine tools, production lines, cables and industrial robots are sold worldwide. Japanese equipment is also exported as part of large industrial or renovation projects. Yulia Negodovich and Sergei Gul, AsstrA-Associated Traffic AG experts in Wood and Paper Logistics and container shipping, respectively, describe how to deliver a new, expensive industrial production line from the land of the rising sun to the CIS.
“In November 2018, the AsstrA Wood and Paper Logistics team received a request from one of the largest Belarusian woodworking enterprises for the delivery of a grinding line from Japan. The transportation route made this project exceptional. Although the Japan-Belarus transportation trade lane is not very popular, we followed standard project logistics planning procedures. This was not AsstrA’s first time transporting an industrial line. This one included both standard and oversized parts. To deliver it all, standard sea containers and special oversized cargo equipment were used,” says Yulia Negodovich.
According to Sergei Gul, the delivery deadline allowed the use of any type of transport. The client therefore chose to use a combined scheme by sea to a port in Lithuania with subsequent land delivery to Belarus. This has made it possible to optimize overall logistics costs – a benefit for every business.
“The first step was to deliver the empty container to the sender’s factory. At the agreed time, the shipper received the necessary container to load the entire batch of equipment. The whole process of loading and delivering containers to the port of Nagoya was monitored by an agent of a sea line with whom AsstrA had developed a reliable long-term partnership. After loading onto the vessel, the grinding line was delivered to the Lithuanian port at the agreed time. At the final stage of delivery to the final recipient, several types of transport were used: container trucks for standard containers and railway platforms for oversized ones.
Oversized cargoes were overloaded in a port with 40“ flat rack containers designed for the transportation of such goods by sea to railway platforms. This made it possible to significantly simplify obtaining permits and the transportation process itself. The cargo was delivered from the port to the destination within 5 working days. Everything was possible thanks to the fast and high-quality organization of the handling process and delivery monitoring by proven and reliable AsstrA partners along the entire transportation route,” continues Sergey Gul.
As Julia Negodovich notes, everything went smoothly from the point of view of transit procedures. The only challenge was incomplete cargo information submitted for the customs declaration at the time of transit.
“The AsstrA team was able to collect the missing documents quickly for the Belarusian customs authorities. Due to the high cost of goods, the client’s priorities were the reliability and safety of transportation. Therefore the client asked AsstrA to provide cargo insurance services in addition to a full range of other transport and logistics services. In summary, I can say that even though this was non-standard cargo shipped on a fairly rare route, it was delivered reliably, on time, and in accordance with all the client’s KPIs,” concludes Yulia Negodovich.
