stahlmarkt 09 | 2019

40 Steel distribution & Service centres
Copyright (5): EMW Stahl-Service-Center
Delivery status, the query of quantities ready for dispatch, an order history or delivery papers and test certificates - customers get all the information
from the platform www.yoursteel.de.
»More and more logistics tasks«
Interview with Michael Mockenhaupt, director EMW Stahl-Service-Center
What’s going on in the field of steel service centers? Steel Market European Edition talked to Michael
Mockenhaupt, director EMW Stahl-Service-Center, about new market trends and how they effect the
company’s business.
Steel Market (SM): What are the main
trends in the field of steel service centers?
Michael Mockenhaupt (MM): In addition
to the provisioning of high-quality materials
that we do anyway, a newer and recent
focus is on cooperations between steelworks,
steel services and steel processors.
This results in taking over of more and more
logistics tasks within the supply chain. In
addition, storage and transport as well as
IT-related processes via Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI) play an increasingly
important role in todays business.
SM: You are increasingly focusing on
optimizing customers‘ supply chains.
What is the intention for this?
MM: Customer proximity is one of the key
factors in our business strategy. This also
applies to the geographic component. For
years, we have been focusing on the increasing
importance on Central European markets.
With success! With the plant in Treuen,
we increase the overall process speed on our
and thus also on the part of our customers.
We can now serve increasing volume needs
just-in-time more efficiently. But not only
customers from the area are benefiting from
this investment, also Poland, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and other Central
European countries are supplied more
efficiently.
Michael Mockenhaupt, Managing Director
EMW Stahl-Service-Center.
SM: You have introduced an EMW portal.
What is the purpose of this portal?
MM: Our customer portal www.yoursteel.
de makes all order-related data transparent
for customers. Whether current delivery status,
the query of quantities ready for
dispatch, an order history or delivery papers
and test certificates - customers get all the
information up-to-date and from a single
source. This will be followed soon by further
logistical benefits, such as pick-up control
and the coordination of partial deliveries.
SM: What is your first interim assessment
of the portal?
MM: We do see a great acceptance of the
portal. It is just easy and useful for the customer.
It is unique in the steel service industry
in this form. With our portal, we cover the
entire process chain of processing, transparently
and at any time. But as it is such a new
approach, we are very sensible for customer
feedback in order to further optimize the portal
for their needs. It helps us to stay in touch
with the customers and learn from them.
SM: Where do you see the effects of
digitalisation elsewhere?
MM: The digital transformation is not only
changing processes in production, sales or
other internal aspects. It changes the expectations
of our customers and partners.
Speed, availability and automation are key
components for success today.
Our customers want to make their processes
faster, more efficient and smarter. As a
steel service center, we see one of our main
tasks to respond to the growing needs within
the process flows, and also to drive
them. We show our customers potential and
concrete digital solutions.
SM: How do you intend to prepare for
this?
MM: Industry 4.0 is not the future, it is the
presence and we are prepared to adapt the
new challenges coming up with it. We are
aware that we need more agility than that
steel market 01.2019