AIT Charters Just-In-Time Part For Order Fulfillment Factory
Published on: Mar 10, 2011
The Challenge:
A marketing and order fulfillment company was in dire need of a part that was manufactured by Philips Lighting in Chartres, France. The plant was about to shut down if the part wasn’t received as soon as possible.AIT’s Cleveland and Chicago stations immediately sprang into action to begin coordinating the critical shipment.
The Solution:
First, AIT had to notify its overseas partner in France to collect the 4 small boxes (weighing a total of 42 pounds) from the Philips location in France. Once recovered, the shipment was placed on an expedited Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, which connected to a flight to Chicago.In the meantime, AIT contacted the customer’s own customs broker to begin the customs process as a “wheels up” clearance. As soon as the flight departed Frankfurt, the customs procedure began so that when the shipment arrived to Chicago, it could be immediately recovered from the airline.
Once the shipment arrived to Chicago, it needed to deliver to the plant in Seymour, IN. Several options were considered; however, because of the extreme urgency attached to this shipment, the quickest choice involved chartering an aircraft directly to a small airport in Seymour, IN, which is located only 10 minutes away from the customer’s plant.
AIT found a charter airline that would fly up to Schaumburg Airport, meet the cargo and fly it down to Seymour.
The freight cleared Customs and a driver was waiting at Lufthansa to pick it up and take the shipment to Schaumburg Airport. The aircraft arrived at 9:00 a.m. as scheduled and the flight arrived on time so that the critical part could be delivered to the plant at 11:55 that morning.