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Coping with the challenges posed by airfreight and baggage handling calls for a precise and thorough approach. Welcome to the concept of systemic partnership, here explained by Visality Consulting ’s Dipl-Ing Stefan Wollschläger, Managing Partner and Dipl-Volksw Sascha Hammer, Consultant.
Over the past few years, ground handlers, airlines and airports have all been taking various measures to increase process performance, product quality and cost efficiency along the airfreight and baggage handling supply chains. Indeed, some improvements have been made, but inefficient physical and informational process interfaces are still causing large amounts of wasted time, resources and money.
Volatile airfreight and passenger flows are taking their path via the hub systems with the best available process performance, product quality and competitive prices. In order to address this challenge, all process partners at any given airport need to undertake further efforts to ensure a sustainable level of customer loyalty and to increase their market share. A comprehensive instrument to achieve best practice in airfreight and baggage handling is the systemic partnership. The success story includes increasing process robustness, shorter throughput times and higher cost efficiency across the supply chain.
The implementation of a systemic partnership between a customer and a service provider takes place on four fundamental business levels: strategic, planning, dispatching and operating.
On the strategic level, systemic partners will define a vision and top goals for the systemic partnership. The partners may choose to offer the best quality-price-ratio or decide to become the cost leader in the market. The strategic decisions must be in line with each company’s strategy, otherwise the implementation of the strategy may fail. The partners may also choose to start joint marketing and sales activities or to co-ordinate their investment and cost planning, for example through establishing a cost-benefit sharing model. Agreements on the strategic level of the systemic partnership make an important impact on further activities and working procedures. It has proved to be useful to initially conduct a moderated off-site workshop with higher management staff, as the strategy of the systemic partnership must be implemented through a top-down model.
On the planning level the systemic partners will harmonise their resource planning parameters and market forecasts. Quantity data needs to be exchanged in order to develop a joint quantity structure model. On that integrative basis, the strategic partners are able to develop and launch new innovative and value-added products and services for their customers and strengthen their market position. The knowledge about quantities and harmonised planning parameters is also beneficial for future infrastructure decisions. In particular, physical process interfaces can be optimised from the beginning in order to ensure a smooth and fast throughput.
On the dispatching level, systemic partners will provide operating data to each other, pro-actively and up-to-date. Access to the partner’s resources is possible and enforced in order to attenuate the effects of a lack of staff. Further on, the harmonisation of IT interfaces should be brought into focus to ensure that all relevant data and process information are transferred completely and in-time. Once the systemic partners exchange their daily business data, a comprehensive KPI system will be implemented to monitor the individual and overall process performance.
On an operating level, the partners will redesign their processes and workflow to ensure a smooth handling of airfreight and baggage across the supply chain. Working instructions need to be updated in addition to implementing a lean-modelled staff information campaign that enforces the optimised workflow and increases the staff awareness. In order to prevent the additional binding of staff it is recommended to integrate these campaigns with existing staff briefings. The implementation of a business game model allows staff members to reflect inefficiencies in past handling processes and to recognise the advantage of the new, redesigned workflow. An additional effect of the use of business games is the development of an overall understanding of the ground handling supply chain with its distinctive requirements of each process partner. Systemic partners often establish integrated work teams in order to enforce communication and the information flow as well as to encourage the new partnership on an organisational basis.
The Visality team has accomplished various projects on systemic partnerships in airfreight and baggage handling and outstanding results in performance, quality and cost efficiency along the supply chains of airfreight and baggage handling have been achieved. Some highlights have been a throughput time for express cargo reduced by 25%; handling-caused cargo offloads reduced by 30%; and the “left-behind” index of baggage cut in half.
In addition, Visality developed comprehensive KPI-systems, which enable the partners to perceive underperformance at an early stage and take measures to countersteer. Actual discussions in the ground handling business emphasise the increasing interest in systemic partnerships. Practical results prove that a necessary candidness and focus on the overall system is profitable for all participating partners. Through a systemic partnership ground handlers, airlines and airports are able to increase process performance and product quality and strengthen their market position on a short-term basis.
Stefan Wollschläger studied Engineering in Berlin. He started his professional career as a business consultant at a university-based company. Since 2003 he has been working for Visality Consulting as a managing partner. He has distinct competencies covering several industry sectors like aviation, logistics, healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
Sascha Hammer studied Economics in Berlin and Melbourne and started his professional career at Lufthansa German Airlines. Since 2008, he has been a consultant at Visality Consulting, with a strong focus on the aviation sector. He has successfully accomplished projects in the areas of airport security, cargo handling, ramp handling, air traffic management, airline ground products and processes and airline MRO.
Visality Consulting is a mid-size consulting firm based in Berlin, Germany, and was founded in 2002. The Visality team is specialised on business strategy and process management consulting with key competencies in aviation, automotive, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, logistics and engineering. For further information: www.visality.de
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