changes What’s driving the process industry

3 questions for Oliver Blum

As Corporate Director of Supply Chain, Oliver Blum and his team ensure that the three million sensors and systems supplied by Endress+Hauser every year reach customers around the world quickly and reliably.

Text: Christine Böhringer
Oliver Blum

Despite mounting order volumes and unstable logistics chains, Endress+Hauser’s delivery reliability remains comparatively high: in 2022, 84 percent of all shipments were delivered to customers at the agreed time. How did you manage that?

Customers benefit from systematic investments in our supply chain, particularly in IT and infrastructure. We have implemented standardized processes and have gathered global key figures since 2015. This analysis helps us to spot trends quickly and become better every day. In addition, regional distribution on many continents now runs through logistics hubs: they receive goods that are ready for dispatch, then algorithms steer final shipment and seek out the optimal logistics service provider for each delivery.

How has this setup been helping?

It gives us resilience and flexibility. For example, when we noticed that procurement was becoming more complicated for our production centers, we were able to upgrade all deliveries by making one simple entry into the system. Now the hub’s algorithm always selects the highest service level and thus saves time on the last mile. And since we can choose from several logistics service providers for every transport route, we can also compensate for any capacity constraints or shortfalls among individual service providers.

How are you currently bolstering the supply chain?

To increase delivery reliability, we are expanding our logistics service provider portfolio to include local champions. Having built up a global transport network over the years, we can now move goods from one logistics hub to another and, from there, onward to regional distribution. Furthermore, operative control of worldwide logistics processes is now back in-house. This increases our agility and accuracy in decision-making – so we can achieve even more for our customers.

Published 31.05.2023, last updated 15.06.2023.