Transports Vervaeke has grown into the leading chemical and fuel logistics provider in the Benelux by acquiring 2 other companies in the last three years. In order to ensure smooth operations and sustain its growth, the company choose to go for a digital transformation. A successful digital transformation of its business also demanded an IT transformation. Transports Vervaeke chose the WLAN platform from Mist to empower its employees to work easily from anywhere in its garages, warehouses, and office locations.
As a family-owned company Transports Vervaeke transports chemicals, gas, fuel and other dangerous goods and this for nearly a century. It serves customers in the Benelux, France and Germany, offering them a wide range of logistics services by road, train, and boat to other regions and internationally. The company operates from 13 locations and has 950 employees, with 850 among them as drivers.
Source: Transport Vervaeke
After the acquisition of a multimodal transportation provider in 2019, the company embarked on a business transformation journey. In order to have a single overview of its European operations, it started consolidating and modernizing its applications.
As a solution a single enterprise software platform will integrate the once disparate business processes of its acquired companies. A new data lake will provide a 360-degree view of its operations and customers. The consolidation of its transportation management system will bring several advantages such as a consistent visibility across countries, increased efficiency and ensured regulatory compliance.
In order to support the digital business transformation, a new IT infrastructure needed to be put in place.
Transports Vervaeke chose to evolve to an AI-driven enterprise. Therefore it decided to choose Mist for its new wireless LAN. Mario De Smedt, IT manager at Transports Vervaeke: “We were quickly able to plan updates of all the access points and perform firmware updates when desired. This increases our flexibility and saves us valuable time.”
Transports Vervaeke introduced the new Wi-Fi solution at its headquarters in Zellik and will continue to expand Mist to its other locations.
Source: Transport Vervaeke
“We are pleased with how flexible Mist is,” De Smedt says. “We are very happy with the performance and the user experience.”
Mist Wi-Fi is at the heart of Transports Vervaeke’s fleet management operations, starting with the customization and maintenance of its entire fleet of 750 tractors, 1000 tank trailers, and 750 tank containers.
Clipboards and paper go digital and are gradually replaced by mobile devices in its garages and warehouses. Technicians will be able to access their work orders from tablets now. With mobile devices and great Wi-Fi, technicians can easily check the inventory for parts, place any orders and even automatically trigger invoicing when the job is complete. “Optimizing our process flows depends on Wi-Fi,” De Smedt says.
Wi-Fi is also provided to the employees and visitors in its corporate offices. De Smedt: “We have the flexibility within our offices to be mobile with our laptops and handheld devices”. ‘’When employees travel to other company locations, their laptops are automatically connected when they arrive.” With Mist, even demanding applications like voice and video chat perform in a flawless way.
With Mist, workers also gain the productivity benefits of mobility, while IT still retains appropriate controls. “Mist gives us a picture of the usage and allows us to control Internet use,” De Smedt says. “If necessary, we can trigger measures to correct the behavior of staff during working hours. We appreciate that we can identify this through Mist.”
The AI-powered Mist delivers unprecedented connectivity insights, which ultimately simplifies network troubleshooting and operations.
“The machine learning capabilities of Mist makes it very easy to set up and use,” De Smedt says.
The integrated AI engine, called Marvis, simplifies IT operations through client-level insights, rapid wired and wireless troubleshooting, trending analysis, detection of anomalies and proactive problem remediation. With Marvis, IT staff can ask natural language queries such as “Why can’t Mathias connect to the network?”. Meanwhile guided remediation helps identifying the root cause and takes automated actions when possible.
“With Mist, we have an overview of all the access points in our different locations,” De Smedt says. “Once we install an access point, it automatically connects to the Mist Cloud, links to our account, which makes the access point ready for use. It’s a piece of cake to integrate new access points into the Mist platform.”
Indoor location services were also a key factor for Transports Vervaeke to choose Mist. With virtual Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) built into the access points, Mist simplifies location services. Transports Vervaeke plans to leverage the virtual BLE capability to identify trucks as they enter their sites for maintenance or cleaning, further streamlining operations.
Interested in what use cases are applicable to your enterprise? Contact us for a talk.
What you can expect:
When: Thursday 21 April from 12h till 13h
You can’t make it but still interested?
Register and receive the recording & handouts of the webinar afterwards.