Business cases

The challenge

A processing plant for raw materials and natural ingredients for the cosmetics and detergents industry near Toulouse, France, imports rapeseed oil from Germany. This supply has to be delivered in a continuous cycle according to the plant's storage capacity and the German supplier's production capacity.

  • NOT ENOUGH FOR A BLOCK TRAIN, TOO MUCH FOR A SINGLE WAGON

With a group of ten wagons three to four times a month, the required quantity of rapeseed oil does not correspond to the remaining capacity or the frequency of the regular freight lines between Germany and France.

  • A JUST-IN-TIME SUPPLY

The plant is organised on a just-in-time basis to optimise production, but has limited storage capacity. The incompressible format of transport in groups of ten wagons using the SNCF's single wagon network, which is not designed for this purpose, does not allow much precision in terms of days of supply to the French plant.