Sonepar: Data instead of speculation

Electrical wholesaler Sonepar operates a fleet of around 1,330 industrial trucks in its German logistics centers. The Mobile Easykey fleet management system is used for the majority of them. Based on the data collected, the fleet manager can identify optimization potential across the entire forklift fleet and make the corresponding decisions.

Electrical products ordered by 8 p.m. are delivered the next day. The logistical effort Sonepar undertakes to store, stock and deliver more than 100,000 different items in a partly automated process is immense. In the largest of the seven logistics centers alone, near Augsburg, 450 colleagues work in three shifts and pick around 44,000 line items for approximately 20,000 customer orders – every day. Because “it doesn’t work entirely without people,” says Sascha Christ, head of the Augsburg logistics center at Sonepar Deutschland GmbH. “The quality inspection of incoming goods, for example, cannot be automated at present,” Christ continues. “Here we rely on valuable manual work with proper, professional visual inspection. And that is a good thing.”

Christ has been with Sonepar for three years. Before that, he was regional manager at Crown Gabelstapler as well as sales and center manager at Toyota Material Handling. After many years with industrial truck and commercial vehicle manufacturers, he moved to the customer side and is now responsible for around 1,330 industrial trucks from five different manufacturers. “When I started at Sonepar, each site kept its own Excel spreadsheets. Nobody had an overview of the entire fleet across Germany.”

In the logistics centers in Dortmund and Frankfurt, some trucks had already been equipped with the Mobile Easykey fleet management system from the provider of the same name based in Friedrichsdorf. Christ then drove the nationwide roll-out across Germany. His colleague Gernot Lernbeiß, head of the General Organization department at Sonepar Deutschland and responsible for the forklift fleet in the logistics centers in Augsburg and Franconia, adds: “The internal environment has changed considerably in recent years. Nothing is decided on gut feeling anymore. Numbers, data and facts are becoming ever more important.”

Savings based on facts

“Mobile Easykey has moved us a long way forward in terms of quality,” says Christ. “We now have data and no longer have to speculate or laboriously piece together information from dozens of Excel spreadsheets.”

Sonepar uses Mobile Easykey hardware on 365 trucks. Around 830 trucks are currently recorded in the software. For future replacement purchases, the fleet management system will always be included. The software now makes it possible to analyze utilization across several sites. “This supports us now and in the future with investment projects and shows us optimization potential across the entire forklift fleet.”

In addition to the analysis, the driver and equipment management functions are important for the electrical wholesaler. Driving authorizations and assignments, training, UVV (German accident prevention regulations) inspection dates, operating manuals and technical data sheets are stored in the remarkably systematic database. “Yes, the beginning was labor-intensive. But now everything is running. And we are contributing to further digitalization at Sonepar. Not as an end in itself, but for more transparency and flexibility and, ultimately, to save money,” says Christ about his experience with Mobile Easykey, the system that in his view “delivers more data than any other universal, manufacturer-independent fleet management system on the market.”

Sustainability as a corporate goal

“The most sustainable forklift is the one we no longer have to buy. But just as we will continue to need people in the future, they will also use forklifts. And we want to operate our industrial trucks as efficiently and climate-friendly as possible,” says Christ, describing a pilot project that will soon start at the Augsburg site.

Two fuel cell-powered industrial trucks will be tested here for two months. If the test is successful, the electrical wholesaler can do without additional stand-by trucks in multi-shift operation, since batteries no longer need to be charged. The plans go even further. With a 2.5 MW photovoltaic system and its own electrolyzer, Sonepar plans to produce green hydrogen and hopes to replace the diesel emergency generator as well. “We want to go green from goods receipt onward,” says Christ, specifying the electrical wholesaler’s ambitions. “And we want to use the CO2 calculator in the Mobile Easykey software to make the CO2 emissions of our industrial trucks transparent. Vehicles with a lower climate impact are subsidized by the EU. And with Mobile Easykey it is possible to record, log and validate this data. That is the perfect basis for applying for the corresponding subsidies.” And for the climate reports to be prepared in the future, Christ highlights the option of running period comparisons in the software.

Fleet management across Europe

“We have proven that the investment in Mobile Easykey has paid off. A future Europe-wide deployment is entirely conceivable,” says Christ, describing the future collaboration and his vision of an equipment pool: “For Germany, I am aiming for a centrally managed equipment fleet.” Industrial trucks would then no longer be purchased by the individual sites but rented from a pool. “Because now we know the actual requirements, and that way we help all sites operate more efficiently and more sustainably.”

Trade journal f+h, September 2024 issue · Success story taken from the previous website.