Damco, the freight forwarding and supply chain management services of Maersk Group, is introducing block trains in India to improve control and facilitate inventory reduction in the supply chain.
The new block train service for William Sonoma International (WSI), a multi-channel specialty retailer of high-quality home products, aims to improve supply chain speed and reliability for the American brand.
With frequent sea shipments from India to the US, Williams Sonoma International needed to improve rail transportation of its products from an Inland Container Depot in Delhi, to Pipavav Port in Gujarat, on the western coast of India.
Damco’s solution was to dedicate an entire train to William Sonoma cargo.
These so-called block trains are given higher priority over other cargo trains; completing their journey more quickly and to a tighter schedule.
This has helped Williams Sonoma International to minimize transit times, particularly to the US West Coast.
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Commending the successful trial of the new approach, Col. Vijay Malhotra, Director Operations at Williams-Sonoma India, said: “By marrying ocean and rail transport as part of this solution, we can move our goods within the minimum inland and ocean transit times out of India to the Americas and other continents.
“The strength of our partnership has been key to achieving this with Damco, Maersk and WSI working towards a common goal – improving reliability and consistency in the supply chain.”
Kasper Krog, Damco Global Head of Rail, commented: “By collaborating with GatewayRail and leveraging the expertise from our close working relationship with Maersk Line and APM Terminals, we have developed a tailored block train solution that will bring more certainty to Williams Sonoma’s inland rail cargo arriving in time for shipping.”
