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Time window management for toys: Simba-Dickie Group introduces SLOT from Cargoclix

Several well-known toy brands are united under the umbrella of the Simba-Dickie Group – including wooden toys from Eichhorn. Photo: Simba-Dickie Group

• Thanks to better planning options in incoming goods, trucks will no longer have to wait and can be unloaded directly in future. 
• Cloud-based software solution reduces personnel and process costs through more efficient information management.

(Freiburg i.Br., 13 March 2023) Whether it’s the famous bright red Bobbycar from Big, wooden trains from Eichhorn or detailed baby dolls from the Corolle company: numerous well-known toy brands are united under the umbrella of the Simba-Dickie Group brand. Some of the toys of the group of companies, which has its headquarters in Fürth, are distributed to the dealers via the Simba-Dickie central warehouse in Sonneberg, Thuringia. In order to further optimize the processes at the ramp in the future and to shorten the waiting time for truck drivers, the company recently introduced the cloud-based time slot management system SLOT from the Freiburg software company Cargoclix at this location. Since then, around six to ten trucks are dispatched here daily in the goods receiving area via the software. 

“Before the introduction, the waiting time for the trucks was sometimes up to two hours, as the deliveries were not announced and all unloading capacities were often exhausted,” reports Sven Jakob, Senior Logistic Manager at Simba-Dickie. Thanks to the system, direct unloading is now usually guaranteed, as staff deployment can already be planned the day before and organized accordingly. Anyone who wants to book a time slot for delivery at Simba-Dickie in Sonneberg can do so as early as 120 days in advance. Short-notice reservations are also possible – up to 10 a.m. the day before. 

The fee of 50 cents per booked time slot is paid by the Simba-Dickie Group itself and is not passed on to the logistics service providers. “The background is that the process costs and the time savings that are now possible absolutely make up for the low booking costs,” explains Sven Jakob. 

The Senior Logistics Manager cites the tool’s ease of use, the level of awareness of Cargoclix among freight forwarders and carriers, and the low running costs of using it as the reasons for choosing the system from Cargoclix. “The introduction of SLOT was accepted by all logistics service providers right from the start,” he explains. He sees the biggest advantages of the system in reduced effort due to more efficient information transfer, the simplification and automation of the registration process as well as in the better plannability of time windows for unloading. In addition, an earlier and more flexible coordination of deliveries with the service providers is now possible. 

In addition to the central warehouse in Sonneberg, the Simba-Dickie Group also operates warehouses in Burghaslach and Lam. Further warehouses abroad are located at the national companies in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, England, Norway, the Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, South Africa and Turkey. 

About Simba-Dickie Group

The Simba-Dickie Group, headquartered in Fürth, Germany, was formed from a merger of the two companies Simba Toys and Dickie Toys in 1993. Today, the group of companies employs around 3,000 people and generated a turnover of 702 million euros in 2022. The group owns around 4,000 products from a total of 20 brands, including Simba, Dickie Toys, Smoby, Big, Eichhorn, Schuco, Noris and Corolle. Worldwide, the company operates 30 sites and eight production facilities.

About Cargoclix

Cargoclix is a neutral Internet marketplace for the electronic tendering of transports and logistics services as well as a provider of modular time slot management systems.

The range of services offered by the logistics platform “Cargoclix TENDER” includes worldwide tenders for contracts for road, rail, air freight, sea and inland waterway transport, courier express parcel services and logistics services such as warehousing. With over 28,000 registered members from industry, trade and freight forwarding, TENDER is one of the leading international tender platforms for transport and logistics.

The central product of the time slot management business unit is the modularly adaptable “Cargoclix SLOT” software for optimizing processes at the ramp. With more than 120,000 members, SLOT is one of the most widely used time slot management systems.

Cargoclix is a brand of Dr. Meier & Schmidt GmbH. The company was founded in 1998 and is located in Freiburg i.Br. www.cargoclix.com.

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