Together with our Customers
Logistics services
Customer Satisfaction Survey for Kobe Terminal
CruiseReturnable Transport Item (RTI) Management System
Management system for the transport of finished vehiclesCooperating with the local community service activities of customers
Deployment of new aircraft
Logistics services
Yusen Logistics Co. Ltd. was established in October 2010 to integrate the operations of NYK Logistics (primarily responsible for ocean freight forwarding, land transportation, warehouse management, and delivery services) and Yusen Air and Sea Service (primarily responsible for air freight forwarding). The international integration of the two businesses has been proceeding apace, and with the incorporation of China and Indonesia in April 2012 is virtually complete. Global-level integration of organizations and operations provides for better coordination in the ocean, land, and air network, more efficient utilization of physical assets, and more efficient deployment of the human resources that are our greatest business asset. Management is unified in both name and fact, and this provides a powerful driving force for the business.
Customer Satisfaction Survey for Kobe Terminal
Container terminals are the linchpins that bring together ocean and land services in international logistics. They are also a point of contact with owners and other customers through the medium of cargo. From FY 2008, we have asked customers using the Kobe Terminal to respond to a satisfaction survey in order to better understand how they view our services. The survey involved direct visits to companies to explain our intentions, and participants received reports of both the findings and new initiatives resulting from them. We take their opinions and remarks and are working to improve. The outcome of the survey has been better communication with customers and a gradual enhancement of our reputation. We will continue to make efforts to improve customer satisfaction in the future.
Cruise
Our top priority is for our guests to feel the joy of life through their cruise experiences, and to do this we create and offer unparalleled cruises at high levels of safety. The accumulation of our experience and expertise is why we can safely bring our guests to cities and ports around the world, show them the beauty of nature and world heritage sites, offer them a rich variety of entertainment and refined cuisine, and also provide spas and other facilities to maintain and improve their health. None of this would be possible without a delicate coordination of both hardware and software resources.
Returnable Transport Item (RTI) Management System
To address limited resources and supplies, as well as environmental issues and rising distribution costs, RTIs will continue to increase and replace conventional and disposable packaging. NYK and the Monohakobi Technology Institute (MTI) have developed automatic-identification technologies to support our customers' optimal use of RTIs.
RTIs must be collected, and any improper management of transfers can actually increase costs from loss, theft, and transfer inefficiency. But we can reduce those risks by installing IC tags* on RTIs and thereby tracking their locations. MTI has a logistics facility, its MTI Tokyo Lab, which conducts various tests and provides solutions for each customer's needs. The lab has equipment on display and provides demonstrations so that customers can experience and understand automatic-identification technologies firsthand.
Survey of visitors at the MTI Tokyo Lab in Fiscal Year 2010
* IC tag
A tag that uses radio waves to recognize people and objects. It is sometimes referred to as an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag.
Management system for the transport of finished vehicles
Currently, the transport of any finished vehicle from automotive factory to dealership is controlled by a paper label (which contains data such as destination, delivery date, parking location, etc.) affixed to the vehicle's windshield. But if the destination changes during transport, it becomes necessary to update and reprint the paper label. Then the new paper label must be manually replaced on the vehicle, which might entail relocation of the vehicle itself to a new storage location. And if there are several sequential updates to a vehicle, mismatches can arise between the information in the system database and the paper information on the actual vehicle.
The Monohakobi Technology Institute (MTI) has been one of the subcontractors for the “Ubiquitous Tokku” program initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) in September 2008, and is moving forward on a three-year plan in cooperation with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. to conduct pilot tests to prove the efficiency of “spatial codes” in international automotive logistics. By using active RFID* tags with display functions in place of paper labels, companies can now manage individual vehicles and monitor events such as shipping history. And whenever the system database is updated, a remote reader antenna broadcasts the new information by radio and automatically changes the display on the vehicle tag, significantly reducing the need for paper labels and their attendant man-hours.
Plans for the future include developing mechanisms that allow vehicle tags to auto-input data and communicate more actively with logistics management systems, which enhancement is expected to reduce costs and increase the reliability of automotive transport. MTI continues to focus on customer perspectives as it develops technologies and solutions that solve logistics challenges, thus adding extra value to customers' logistics services.
Application of active tags** with display functions for finished vehicles
- Reading bar-code data from paper labels takes many man-hours and is time-consuming.
- Identification of individual vehicles takes many man-hours and is time-consuming.
- Replacing paper labels takes a substantial amount of time and work.
- Using lots of paper labels creates an environmental burden.
- Paper labels cannot be updated during transport.
- Because companies now all use different systems, it costs a lot of time and money for them to share information.
- Eliminating the need to replace labels by hand means a substantial reduction in work processes for inventory, etc.
- Identifying individual vehicles requires fewer man-hours.
- Changes in destination, end customer, and such can be efficiently made during transport.
- Great cost performance comes from using spatial codes for location identification and from sharing that enhanced information among multiple involved parties.
* RFID
Radio Frequency Identification
Automated noncontact recognition technology using radio waves to identify items such as cargo and transportation units
** Active tag
Active electronic tags have a builtin battery and can transmit data over distances of hundreds of meters. The newly developed electronic tag also comes with “display functions” that enable easy remote confirmation and modification of the tagged object's storage location, destination, and other information.
Cooperating with the local community service activities of customers
NYK provides visits to coal carriers as part of its efforts to cooperate with the local community service activities of customers that have contracts for these dedicated vessels (electric power companies). We have also created a comic book in Arabic that provides an easy-to-understand explanation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) transport for children in Qatar and other countries. These efforts to provide the general public with basic knowledge about LNG and NYK's efforts to transport it safely have earned high praise from local communities.
Deployment of new aircraft
Nippon Cargo Airlines Co. Ltd. (NCA) has accelerated the switchover of its fleet by retiring all its Boeing 747-200F aircraft during Fisical Year 2007 and moving entirely to Boeing 747-400Fs in April 2008. The introduction of these high-performance airplanes enabled the company to maintain safe operations while also improving the ontime performance and quality of its services.
High marks from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency improve customer confidence
SmartWay is an EPA program launched in 2004 with the aim to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution from commercial transportation in the United States. We participate in the “SmartWay Transport Partnership,” a voluntary partnership in which shippers, freight carriers, and logistics companies commit to benchmark operations, track fuel consumption, and improve performance annually. Our company, a member since 2005, has consistently earned the highest score possible. Categorized as a logistics partner, we are required to ensure that we utilize EPA partner motor carriers as our vendors. We became a partner primarily to express our environmental awareness, but large brand customers now view participation and high scores as two of the criteria they use to determine which service providers to appoint.
Business Development & Marketing Analyst
Yusen Logistics (Americas) Inc.
Autumn Houston