By Esteban Vargas, DINET Operations Manager
In the world of logistics services inside or outside Peru, for clients or suppliers, greater efficiency in logistics operations is sought after. This search has a greater relevance when logistics are considered the vertebral spine of business. For one decade the use and application of logistics in Peru has been considered as very important for the performance of activities in any industry, but it is the mining sector which has suffered the most important revolution during the last decade, with a greater logistics operators offer, with single services or multi modal multiservice at very competitive prices as their differentiation, while maintaining safety standards that are not negotiable.
Now that the industrial sector is experiencing the pressure of more demanding global standards regarding productivity, safety, sustainability and environmental care, the logistics offer has become a relevant tool for its development. Logistics applied to mining, in which there are many services such as warehouses, transportation, hauling and freight management, has had a crucial role in the industry, to the extent that if it didn’t exist the industry wouldn’t have developed.
As executives from the logistics area, we are always wondering what we can do to continue improving standards, in our search for operational excellence in each of the operations that we offer. I always reach the conclusion that to achieve this it is necessary to combine four key elements that must work in a synchronized manner to build said excellence and to keep up with service evolution. These key elements that we should always work on are: processes, systems, infrastructure and people. These four elements can be applied to any industry and sector.
In the mining sector if we want to seek operational excellence (OPEX) and have better productivity for our clients and suppliers in transportation and freight management services, we must not only use the best transportation units with the best technology and the greatest load capacity. We must also combine a good use of the unit, in harmony with road infrastructure, through for example better highways or railroads in order to improve round trips, which is a relevant success factor for operational excellence.
Just as in the mining sector, all other sectors have good opportunities that we can continue exploiting regarding load transportation services, such as integrating technology to the most modern units with devices that adapt to the units and receive permanent information on the journeys (not only the round trip and the road map). There is also also fuel efficiency, tire wear, tracked performance and good driving. All of this can be monitored online, without waiting for the end of the month to gather information and more importantly, this is instrumental to provide constant visibility on the service quality for clients through web applications that allow them to measure logistics operators and which allow internally to measure costs for each of the journeys.
Finally all client-oriented logistics operators should review permanently, as if it was their own, the clients’ supply chain, developing tirelessly better logistics applications, not only through consultation sales but through the implementation of concrete savings ideas.
