Saint-Gobain Flat Glass SCM

How do they move flat glass?

    Sea shipping is the easiest method of transporting for intercontinental distribution, with sufficiently long lead times, and extra storage and packing costs. Otherwise, both by train and by truck road transportation is feasible. The train should only be used for large quantities, with significant lead times. Trucks are the most versatile means of transportation for short-distance delivery and for limited volumes. An inloader is a special truck specially designed to carry large-sized glass sheets (called Plateau Largeur Fabricationd PLF). The peculiar issue is that inloaders can only hold the glass (PLF). it fills the glass trestle directly. It loads the glass trestle directly. PLF can also only be shipped by inloaders.

Inloader Truck.

    Therefore the loading and unloading periods for dedicated glass trestles are reduced. The inloader fleet, however, is small, and peak times can be crucial to having a truck on-hand. Nowadays, the bill for each supply includes the round trip kilometers in the case of internal as well as external transport. The travel rates are also greater than historically. This problem is solved by optimizing the reloading time on deliveries. If an inloader is discharged at a point near its potential loading spot, the empty truck kilometers will be minimized. This is the reason why shipping costs rely on flow style transfers between plants or replenishment of any logistics network to be cheaper than any delivery to customers. The reloading rate may preferably be about 100 percent in the first scenario, while in the second it may be up to 75 percent. Ultimately, given the general cost structure of the raw goods, shipping costs tend to be a crucial element in the glass sector requiring an effective supply chain.