Shipment of Industrial Casting Mold from Europe to the USA

PROJECT:

A business applications company needed to ship brand new equipment from multiple countries in Europe to the United States. The main shipment included an industrial casting mold worth over US$5 million.

LOGISTICS REQUIREMENTS, CHALLENGES & SOLUTIONS:

This project, which involved oversized and overweight cargos, required several shipments by air and by sea. The project’s success depended on the precise coordination of every step of the shipment process—from the initial preparation of cargo to final delivery. The MSL Express team began with a series of conference calls with several parties from the United States (the buyer, plus 3 engineers, and project managers), the UK-based seller, and multiple suppliers from countries ranging from the UK, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and France.

The project also required an MSL Express team member to coordinate with all the suppliers in each country, on the local level, and to provide feedback to the U.S. buyer on the timing (when the machineries were ready to ship), the mode of shipment (which boat or airline was available to ship), and up-to-the-minute information on flexibility (in case there were last-minute changes). For the subsequent 3 months, progress updates were provided on a week-to-week basis to multiple parties.

Timing was critical for this project: A huge advertising and marketing campaign was to occur on a specific date, which meant that all equipment must arrive on a very tight time window. To avoid multiple suppliers being late in delivery, MSL Express  helped in chartering the largest commercial aircraft, an Antonov-124, and had it placed on standby, in case the previously arranged mode of shipment fell through.

RESULT:

Shipments arrived at the client’s door within their expected time frame and was extremely satisfied with MSL Express’s performance. This happened about 3 years ago. Since then, this supplier has been using MSL Express for every shipment from the UK to the rest of the world.