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The Suez Canal blockage was another headache. Several components were stuck on board the Ever Given, which ran aground in March 2021, and there was no way the shipment would reach Hemisphere’s facility on time. The company advised its client to reorder – which enabled assembly to continue as planned and finish on schedule. By the conclusion of the contract, Hemisphere had produced 29,460 assemblies for the client, amounting to 848,698 kg of cargo. Success So successful was the project that the client is now outsourcing all of its assembly to Hemisphere. The two firms are working together to devise a solution for an additional 2,000,000 assemblies over the next three or four years. Hemisphere director Louis Perrin said: “Our industry has always been flexible and agile, especially when it comes to small and medium- sized freight forwarders; so we were in a good place to react to challenges like the pandemic, Brexit, the Suez Canal blockage, driver shortages... “We also took on extra staff to keep up with demand. This was difficult – there was high demand across the industry – but we grew our headcount by 22% in 2021. “As we have said, we are like a duck on water; the customers do not see all the challenges we deal with on their behalf. We take on the headaches and hassles of logistics for them so they can focus on other areas of their business; we are a facilitator.” The pandemic has certainly revealed the strengths inherent in the logistics sector, and its vital role in areas ranging from critical infrastructure projects to the distribution of medical supplies. “It has shown the world how important shipping and transport is,” Joseph said. Descartes gives international freight forwarders and shippers a single Customs Platform to import and export freight across international borders. Descartes’ Customs, freight and transport management software is used by most of the major forwarders and shippers in the UK to maximise speed of entry with single data entry for multiple countries, boosting productivity and improving data quality. Descartes’ transport management solutions will increase efficiency, reduce costs and enhance customer service when using outsourced multimodal transportation operations.
Left to right: Craig
Perrin, Simon Joseph and Louis Perrin
A flexible approach keeps metro on track Going the extra mile often involves leaving one’s comfort zone – and that is certainly what Hemisphere Freight did last year, extending its services beyond their normal scope under challenging circumstances and going on to win BIFA’s Extra Mile Award
Hemisphere Freight’s client in its BIFA award winning project had to supply Mexico City Metro with a new rail track assembly. This involved procuring individual components from locations in Europe, India and Asia, then shipping these products to the UK for assembly, packing and onward transport to their final destination in spring 2021. Assembly was impossible for the client to carry out at its own facilities within the narrow time window of just a few months. Client’s operation So, said Craig Perrin, director at Hemisphere: “We mirrored our client’s operation and scaled it up. We brought in the necessary equipment and our client provided training; we implemented quality checks, SOPs to follow and supervisor checks, so everything was quality controlled. We managed to set ourselves up and be operational within two weeks, which was quite an achievement before the project had truly started.” According to Simon Joseph, total logistics manager at Hemisphere, the speed of the job
was as impressive as its quality. Hemisphere’s proximity to the port of Felixstowe shortened transit times, saving 45 days. The worst case scenario would have been a wholesale shutdown owing to COVID-19 infections. Hemisphere personnel tested themselves regularly, and additional staff were trained up to cover any absences so that the assembly line could continue uninterrupted. The pandemic posed other problems, too. Joseph said: “When COVID-19 hit there was no space on vessels from the Far East for about six weeks, and a lot of the components were being sourced from places like China, Vietnam and India. We planned ahead and booked space on vessels before products were ready. “We were like a duck on water,” he continued. “We had to work hard and be flexible; we also had excellent global partners that assisted us.”
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March 2022
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