Ronnie Vos
Logistic Engineer
Henrian de Vries
Order Management
Niels Veldkamp
Order Processor
Royal Avebe, the world’s leading potato starch and protein manufacturer, oversees global shipping for the export of 10,000 containers annually. To optimize this massive undertaking, Avebe’s Global Logistics team integrated BuyCo with their SAP system to simplify, automate, and centralize their shipping processes, driven by a core mission to eliminate manual activities. The adoption of BuyCo has substantially improved booking accuracy and operational efficiency, simplified document management, and provided crystal-clear tracking visibility for both internal teams and customers.
The Global Transportation Context at Avebe
- World’s largest producer of potato starch & protein
- 10,000 containers shipped yearly
Avebe distributes its products globally to a diverse array of industries, including food, feed, paper, building materials, and adhesives. While European shipments rely primarily on road or short-sea freight, exports to destinations across Asia, the Americas, and Africa demand robust ocean transport, accounting for 10,000 containers every year.
To manage this, the company leverages a strategic mix of direct bookings with six major shipping lines (handling 80% of the volume) alongside two freight forwarders (managing the remaining 20%). Operating out of multiple key ports including Rotterdam and Hamburg, which strategically supports their Dutch and German factories, Avebe ships to over 150 destinations worldwide. To sustain this vast network, Avebe required a versatile system capable of managing operations across any port of origin and destination globally. Internally, the container shipping workflow is divided between a dedicated order management and booking team, and a specialized documentation team.
The Case for Change
Before BuyCo, Avebe relied on a legacy solution for container shipping that lacked innovation and failed to support their evolving business needs. The outdated platform lacked reliable vessel schedules and functioned merely as a tool for sending booking requests, resulting in excessive back-and-forth communication with shipping lines whenever proposed schedules failed to meet Avebe’s requirements.
“BuyCo doesn’t only provide a system, it provides a solution”
Furthermore, Shipping Instructions could not be amended within the system, forcing the team to resort to manually managing documents via Excel templates. This process was incredibly time-consuming. Container tracking was equally inefficient, requiring extensive manual effort just to retrieve accurate data.
The pivot to BuyCo was fueled by a need to digitalize operations, eliminate manual bottlenecks, and boost efficiency across booking, tracking, and documentation. BuyCo stood out by offering a comprehensive solution, combining software with industry expertise, that focused on identifying and resolving global shipping bottlenecks rather than simply pushing a software product.
The ultimate measure of success for this transition was the reduction of manual tasks, which directly correlates with lowered personnel requirements. These benefits were achieved through an implementation project that proved far less complex than other TMS implementations that they have done in the past.
Easier and More Efficient Booking Process with BuyCo
BuyCo serves as Avebe’s daily command center for booking orders, ensuring products reach the correct port on time based on the customer’s required delivery date and BuyCo’s precise Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA).
- The Avebe team gathers live vessel schedules from all carriers into one centralized dashboard, allowing them to rapidly prioritize crucial factors like transit times, costs during the selection process.
- Additionally, Avebe enjoys automated SAP system updates; booking confirmation details (such as numbers, vessels, and dates) flow seamlessly from BuyCo into SAP, eliminating manual data entry and preventing costly typos.
Simplified and Centralized Document Management
A specialized team manages documentation, including shipping instructions, Verified Gross Mass (VGM) declarations, document uploads, and customer tracking links.
- With BuyCo, Shipping Instructions and VGM declarations are automatically generated and digitally dispatched to carriers.
- Other essential shipping documents sync directly from SAP into BuyCo, creating a collaborative hub for all shipment participants, including customers.
- This seamless integration eliminates the headache of sharing document versions, comments, and updates back and forth via email.
Compared to their previous process using legacy software, where amendments required manual emails or cumbersome Excel files, BuyCo makes managing shipping instructions and VGM declarations effortless. Digitally storing everything in BuyCo also saves immense amounts of time and paper compared to the old method of printing, scanning, and emailing invoices or packing lists to customers. Today, everything is centralized and instantly searchable using just the order number.
“No more emails or Excel files, BuyCo makes shipping instructions and VGM management effortless.”
More Efficient Collaboration with Freight Forwarders
BuyCo acts as a dynamic collaboration hub between Avebe and its freight forwarders. Because BuyCo is directly connected to these forwarders, it enables seamless data flow between the forwarders, Avebe’s internal teams on BuyCo, and the integrated SAP system.
Centralized Container Tracking
BuyCo delivers a unified, centralized view for tracking all containers, regardless of whether they are managed by direct carriers or freight forwarders. This is a massive leap forward from the past, where the team was forced to juggle individual carrier websites and lacked the ability to share tracking links directly with customers.
Streamlined D&D Management with BuyCo
Avebe utilizes BuyCo’s 3D (Demurrage & Detention) module to maintain centralized, comprehensive milestone records for their containers against freetime capacity, allowing them to deeply understand the timeline behind any incurred costs.
- This data establishes concrete evidence of carrier liability regarding surcharges.
- Armed with this evidence upon receiving a D&D invoice, Avebe saves significant time gathering proof and successfully wins a higher number of disputes against carriers.
“Gathering D&D evidence now takes minutes instead of hours.”
Enhanced Customer Satisfaction
Customer collaboration has been supercharged through the use of BuyCo’s shipment tracking links.
- Most customers now receive a direct link to monitor their product’s delivery in real time.
- This convenient feature spares customers the hassle of logging into carrier websites with booking or container numbers just to get a status update.
While hard to quantify with a single metric, providing this tracking link is seen as a highly valuable service that significantly boosts customer satisfaction and meets modern industry demands for complete shipment visibility. Previously, shipment visibility was more limited once a container was loaded, whereas the current approach enables continuous, transparent tracking throughout the journey.
Simplified Collaboration Within Avebe’s Customer Team
Onboarding Avebe’s internal customer service centers in the USA and Singapore to the BuyCo platform has saved substantial time and drastically cut down on unnecessary emails by allowing these teams to independently check shipment statuses. Furthermore, Avebe’s transport team can share tracking links directly with the Sales team, who then pass them along to the customers. This simple workflow effectively eliminates the once-frequent question from Sales: “What is the status of my customer’s containers?”.
“Sharing shipment tracking boosts customer satisfaction and delivers the visibility customers expect.”
A Foundation for Future Growth
The integration of BuyCo with Avebe’s operations has achieved the core mission: transforming global shipping from a manual, time-intensive burden into a streamlined, automated, and centralized process. By eliminating reliance on legacy systems, Excel sheets, and excessive email communication, Avebe has successfully digitalized its workflow, resulting in substantial gains in both efficiency and accuracy.
By establishing BuyCo as its daily command center for global logistics, Avebe has not only resolved immediate operational bottlenecks but also built a robust, versatile foundation capable of scaling with future business growth. This strategic digital pivot ensures Avebe can maintain its leadership position while efficiently managing its complex, global distribution network.
