cargo-partner celebrated the official opening of its innovative iLogistics Center with 250 invited guests. The iLogistics Center near Vienna Airport had taken up operations on June 1, 2018 – exactly one year after the ground-breaking of the construction. After several months of successful operations, the opening celebration was hosted as an opportunity to thank the responsible project team as well as key customers and partners in the region and celebrate the success together.
The evening was moderated by Austrian journalist and presenter Sasa Schwarzjirg and kicked off with a brief introduction by cargo-partner CEO Stefan Krauter. After this, Martin Schenzel, Managing Director of cargo-partner in Austria, invited the iLogistics Center project team to the stage to honour them for the successful construction and implementation. The following gala dinner was accompanied by an impressive “Aerial Silk” acrobatic show as well as live music, combining culinary art and performance in a striking way.
As a further surprise of the evening, the traditional ribbon cutting was replaced by a log sawing, performed by cargo-partner CEO Mr Krauter and Gerhard Schödinger, representative of the Provincial Parliament of Lower Austria. The chainsaws were provided by power tool manufacturer Makita, who had built its new company headquarters at the same time as cargo-partner’s iLogistics Center was constructed on the neighbouring property.
Stefan Krauter, CEO of cargo-partner, explained his motivations behind this investment: “The transport and logistics industry never stands still. In times of globalization and digitalization, we constantly have to keep transforming and adapting to stay ahead of the curve. The Vienna Airport region has always been an important hub for us and with our iLogistics Center, we have successfully created a showcase project of ecologically and economically sustainable architecture.”
The cargo-partner iLogistics Center is completely made of wood, from the wall and roof construction to the façade. In total, 4,200 m³ of timber was used. Every cubic meter of wood which replaces other building materials reduces the CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere by an average of 1.1 t. In addition, timber constructions are massive carbon reservoirs: 0.9 t of CO₂ are stored in every cubic meter of wood. For the 4,200 m³ of timber used in the iLogistics Center, this results in a total CO₂ reduction of 8,400 t.
On a total area of 12,250 m², the iLogistics Center in Fischamend contains 24,500 pallet slots in the high-bay racking system as well as 32,000 small parts bins, 2,000 m² of operative handling area and several variable areas. The state-of-the-art warehouse provides dedicated equipment for the storage and handling of various types of goods – from sensitive small parts to standard pallets to long and heavy goods. Here, cargo-partner offers its customers a complete service package for the requirements of spare parts logistics, retail and eCommerce, including a wide range of value-added services. With its new iLogistics Center, cargo-partner has created 35 additional jobs, bringing the staff up to a total of over 300 employees in Fischamend, and just under 500 in Austria.
One of cargo-partner’s main customers at the new iLogistics Center is ENGEL, a leading international manufacturer of injection moulding machines with headquarters in Schwertberg, Austria. cargo-partner has been handling ENGEL’s spare parts logistics from the iLogistics Center since June 1, 2018. Over the course of several planning workshops, cargo-partner assessed the processes and process areas required by ENGEL, and the iLogistics Center was fine-tuned to these requirements in regard to its layout and processes. Over a span of three months, cargo-partner transferred 27,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) from ENGEL’s production facilities to the new iLogistics Center. The transfer was executed smoothly and completed three weeks before the scheduled deadline.
Harald Wegerer, Vice President Customer Service Division at ENGEL, on why the decision fell on the cargo-partner iLogistics Center: “Our requirements were clear from the start: high process security, late cut-off times for incoming orders, and guaranteed same-day delivery with excellent transport and logistics connections. In addition, an essential requirement is that we can rely on order fulfilment 365 days a year. The cooperation with cargo-partner was highly satisfactory, and I think we both benefited and learned very much from this project.”
Wolfgang Scheibenpflug, Head of Real Estate and Location Management at Vienna Airport, congratulated cargo-partner on the fast completion of the building and thanked the company for the good partnership: “As a longstanding and loyal partner of Vienna Airport, cargo-partner is extremely important to us, since the company’s development serves not only to create and secure many jobs but also to strengthen the traffic hub around our Airport City.”
Gerhard Schödinger, a representative of the Provincial Parliament of Lower Austria, likewise emphasized the importance of the investment for the business hub and thanked cargo-partner for the courage to pursue this innovative construction project as well as for the creation of modern and attractive workplaces.
In recent years, cargo-partner has been heavily investing in the expansion of its worldwide contract logistics capacities. Besides the project near Vienna Airport, the most recent investments include new iLogistics Centers in Sofia and Ljubljana as well as the ongoing expansion of the iLogistics Center in Dunajska Streda, Slovakia.
The special designation “iLogistics Center” is used for those warehouses which were constructed by cargo-partner, allowing for deeper integration with customers by means of tailor-made warehouse design and processes. The denotation also emphasizes the logistics provider’s strong focus on information logistics. Since 2000, cargo-partner has been digitalizing its processes and providing its clients with comprehensive supply chain management services with the help of the SPOT Visibility & Collaboration Platform.