When looking in the refrigerator at home, every German statistically looks at least at one Silgan Closures product. From preserving jars to milk cartons and PET bottles, the range of Silgan products covers all the food and drinks on the supermarket shelves. This makes Silgan one of the absolute world market leaders in its segment.

For more than 10 years now, the company, which is headquartered in Munich, has relied on the know-how of Hellmann Contract Logistics in European distribution and is thus one of our most important customers in this segment. The cooperation started in summer 2009 after Hellmann had won the tender for an annual volume of around 200,000 pallets. The contract with Hellmann has now been extended by three years, effective May 1, 2020.

Today the trust is greater than ever, which is probably also due to the Corona crisis. Due to the massive increase in demand for food and beverages, Silgan has experienced a sales peak in recent months. Hellmann was able to deliver the increased number of consignments to the recipient with an almost 100% in-time quota despite corona. This alone deserves great praise, says Key Account Manager Lars Limp, who has accompanied Silgan's customers since the very beginning.

As a 4PL service provider deeply immersed in the processes

What is special about the partnership-based cooperation is that Hellmann acts as a so-called 4PL service provider. "We coordinate all logistics processes to and from the three central European warehouses in Hanover, Krakow in Poland and Battipaglia in southern Italy. As Hellmann, we only handle around 20 percent of the shipments ourselves," says Lars Limp. The aim is rather to take over the control and integration function of all service providers within the supply chain and increase the efficiency of the supply chain for the customer.  Our Control Tower team from Hellmann Road & Rail: Michael Pietsch, Cengiz Karaca and Paul Volkow.

To achieve this, Hellmann immersed himself deeply into the logistics processes at the beginning of the cooperation. A detailed transport company study was carried out, a completely new distribution concept was developed and the supply chain for Silgan was optimized step by step. Today, all forwarding service providers, all delivery tours, all freight budgets, and all processes in the warehouse are controlled by Hellmann Contract Logistics. "After about 10 years, as a full-service provider we are now very close to the maximum in terms of optimization potential," says Lars Limp.  "Nevertheless, we must constantly adapt to changing market conditions and regulations to provide the service. Especially when legal changes occur, we also provide Silgan with advice and support," the Key Account Manager continues.

In this complex job, all the threads come together in the so-called Control Tower in Hanover. There, embedded in Silgan's factory processes, the Hellmann colleagues are responsible for the smooth handling of distribution. They are supported by their colleagues from Contract Logistics, who also operate the production warehouse at the Silgan site. And the recent extension of the contract underlines the outstanding work of all those involved there.