Hardly any industry is as diverse as logistics: anyone who focuses solely on the storage or delivery of goods overlooks numerous upstream and downstream processes that make the business as fascinating as it is demanding. Why does building a wooden crate require dedicated design experts? Why does Geis employ a seamstress? How do vital medications reliably reach the places where they’re urgently needed, day after day? And why is it sometimes simply the weather that throws off even the best timing and project planning? You’ll find the answers on the following pages. They showcase examples of how we’re happy to go the extra mile for our customers.

“Since we began our partnership in 2011, we’ve established a whole range of services that go well beyond the traditional portfolio of freight forwarding-related logistics services,” says Henry Portisch, Branch Manager at Geis in Kürnach. This begins as soon as the goods arrive in Kürnach – even on hangers, since some of the high-quality garments cannot be transported lying flat. Geis receives the goods and scans each individual product using RFID. For the subsequent in-house quality control, Geis employs a trained seamstress who, together with her team, randomly samples the goods, remeasures them, and in some cases corrects any deviations on the spot.

Drykorn values this attention to detail as well as the flexibility. This is especially crucial during peak season. Geis responds to rising demand by adjusting its capacity. For so-called “never-out-of-stock” merchandise, the rule is that it must always be available in stores in the correct quantities. Precise quantity planning is therefore also crucial during goods dispatch. Once perfectly packaged, the merchandise then sets off from Kürnach on its journey to retail stores.

These coordinated processes work so well in part because Geis and Drykorn’s IT systems are closely integrated. They communicate in real time. In addition, other transportation service providers are connected to Geis’s warehouse management software. Capacity and transportation planning can be flexibly managed at any time via dashboards. It goes without saying for both partners that deliveries should be as sustainable as possible. For example, reusable packaging is used for internal shipments between Drykorn and Geis.

What sets the collaboration between Geis and Drykorn apart? “We’ve been equal partners from day one. Drykorn knows that we always think proactively and adapt our processes flexibly as needed,” says Henry Portisch. “DRYKORN for beautiful people” is Drykorn’s brand slogan. For Geis, this is incentive enough to offer logistics services that fit just as well as the fashion label’s clothing.

The spare parts inventory in Neu-Isenburg comprises approximately 60,000 items. There, Geis manages the entire operational warehouse logistics for its customers, including goods receipt and shipment, returns processing, and intralogistics. The portfolio includes sophisticated technology and includes mechanical, electronic components as well as highly specialized assemblies.

230 employees work around the clock, 365 days a year, to ensure that parts arrive quickly where they are urgently needed. Automated, standardized, and optimally coordinated warehousing and shipping processes allow for late cut-off times. In some cases, employees hand over shipments recorded in the warehouse management system to the carrier on the very same day. Geis is a regulated agent, which ensures compliance in air freight, a high level of process reliability, and fast domestic and international distribution.

The secret to the success of the Global Hub in Neu-Isenburg? “Flexibility,” says Site Manager Thomas Brunner with conviction. “To me, that means openly addressing all requirements, responding flexibly to them, understanding customer needs, and working together as equals to develop a trusting, pragmatic solution.”

When deliveries for pharmaceutical customers arrive at Geis locations early in the morning, the processes run like clockwork. The sensitive goods are quickly picked and loaded onto trucks; the drivers set off and make their deliveries the very same day. From Frankfurt to Lake Constance, from Freiburg to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Customers include hospitals, pharmacies, and private individuals who urgently rely on medications, liquid nutrition, or oxygen for respiratory support. Behind this well-oiled routine lie decades of experience, combined with sophisticated, customer-specific logistics processes.

“Service logistics is diverse and demanding, especially in the pharmaceutical sector,” says Patrick Ortner, Head of Service Logistics at Geis Eurocargo’s Nuremberg location. “That’s why we’re more than happy to go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction.”

Pharmaceutical shipments for Geis customers are temperature controlled. Keeping medications cool is often literally a matter of life and death. That’s why Geis knows the exact temperature of every shipment – from the moment goods are received until they’re handed over to the customer. The EU’s GDP (Good Distribution Practice) guidelines apply to the delivery of pharmaceuticals: these strict criteria stipulate, for example, that logistics providers must demonstrate comprehensive quality management. Every step of the process requires complete documentation.

Trust that is essential not only for complex pharmaceutical shipments. The services offered by Geis’s Road division include numerous other services, such as the delivery of refrigerators and freezers to electronics stores. Heavy-haul transport is also part of the portfolio, often involving loads that are excessively long, wide, or tall. When heavy machinery, transformers, or components for wind turbines are transported across Germany to their destinations, the planning involved is no less complex than that for a small package of medication.

“Our customers benefit from our Control Tower approach,” says Ortner. This means that every customer at Geis has a dedicated contact person. Everything comes together at the central Control Tower in Nuremberg. The consolidation of information, resources, and expertise creates synergies and enables efficient process management.

At Geis, specialized cargo like this is a job for the experts at Air + Sea. The words “standard” and “routine” are practically non-existent in their vocabulary. “For our teams, almost every job is a new logistical challenge,” says Mike Montigel, General Manager of General Transport AG. Take, for example, a track-renovation train that the Geis experts transported from the Matisa manufacturing site in Crissier, in western Switzerland, to Odenton, Maryland (USA). Track-renovation trains are true masterpieces of heavy-duty engineering: often several hundred meters long depending on the task at hand, they can remove old rails, ties, and ballast at the front end. The result of their work is a completely new track at the rear end, ready for train traffic. The Matisa train, which was destined for the U.S., was over 73 meters long, had a total weight of 424 metric tons, and was first transported by road – spread across eleven heavy-haul trucks – to Basel, Switzerland.

In Basel, the massive cargo was transferred to two inland waterway vessels, which transported it via the Rhine and the Scheldt-Rhine Canal to Antwerp, Belgium. There, the train was transferred to another vessel – the next mode of transport was a roll-on/roll-off ocean-going freighter bound for Baltimore, Maryland, USA. At the port there, the precision work was repeated: Several heavy-duty gantry cranes lifted the train components and placed them with centimeter-level accuracy onto the low-bed trailers of the company responsible for road transport to the customer’s delivery location in Odenton.

Organizing and coordinating such a multimodal transport chain is a feat in itself. During the planning phase, the experts at General Transport took every possible scenario into account: “For road transport through Switzerland and the U.S., we mapped out alternative routes in case of obstacles on the planned routes,” said Montigel. In fact, a detour had to be taken in Baltimore, which extended the travel time to six hours – it’s good to be prepared for such a scenario. What could not be anticipated was the snowstorm just before the destination, which threw the schedule into disarray but did not compromise the safe transport.

These were precisely the requirements of an assignment for Geis Air + Sea: to transport a GE90 – one of the largest and most powerful jet engines in the world. Geis Air + Sea’s Hamburg-based aerospace team organized the air transport from Hong Kong to Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The engine, weighing approximately ten metric tons, required detailed planning and the use of specialized equipment.

“The shipment included the complete engine, a transport stand, and a so-called ‘prop dolly’ – that is, a chassis on which the engine can be towed behind a vehicle,” says Thore Haberkorn, Head of Aerospace/Time Critical, describing the task. In total, the cargo weighed approximately 10.5 metric tons. Due to its dimensions, only a Boeing 747-8F aircraft was suitable for transport. The cargo’s high value also required precise planning and close coordination among all parties involved throughout the transport chain. “To deliver a shipment like this to the recipient safely and without complications, a team needs specialized logistics solutions, careful coordination, and many years of experience in the aerospace sector,” says Haberkorn.

Special cases such as the track-renovation train or the aircraft engine are part of Geis Air + Sea’s daily business: The team moves air freight around the globe, organizes ocean freight of all sizes – from consolidated containers to full charters – and seamlessly manages time-sensitive shipments from pickup to delivery.