It was an average Monday afternoon in September at our North American headquarters in Jersey City, NJ, when Tomas Salomoni, Ed Penafiel, and Tony Camacho, of Kuehne+Nagel’s Road Logistics team received a call from a long-time, well-known, pharmaceutical customer that needed special support.
The customer gently asked, “Might you be able to help deliver approximately 150 pallets of flu vaccines, outside of their usual fixed lane of delivering to retail clinics, and instead deliver the vaccines directly to over 40 Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals across the country – and do so within less than ten days?”
For the Road Logistics team, this meant the vaccines which require special care and refrigeration, needed a complex solution in a very short timeframe. The answer from the Road Logistics team – a quick and resounding yes! Motivated by helping this customer, and with an extra boost of knowing that the flu vaccines would potentially save lives and make a real difference in the lives of those who had so valiantly served our country – our veterans – the team went right to work to make this happen.
With the expertise of the Road Logistics team at Kuehne+Nagel, who specialize in building these kind of complex road logistics operations, they crafted a unique operation, similar to what is called a “milk run,” to meet the customer’s needs. For this, the team used a multi-stop lane, according to the geography/distance to optimize equipment utilization and reduce the overall cost.
By early Wednesday morning, within 36 hours of the initial customer call, the Road Logistics team had arranged for three different carriers to pick up over 150 pallets of vaccines from 14 locations across Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. The vaccines were transported in 14 temperature-controlled trucks to ensure their safekeeping during the journey.
By Friday afternoon, Kuehne+Nagel had successfully made 42 deliveries across 20 states, providing flu shots to over a half a million military veterans and their families across the United States. Thanks to the extraordinary teamwork and expertise of the Road Logistics team here at Kuehne+Nagel, this seemingly impossible task was accomplished, and many VA hospitals were able to receive the flu vaccines they needed.
“As Veterans Day is upon us, we are especially proud of the teamwork and collaboration to achieve this complex and challenging solution for our customer in support of these everyday heroes,” said Joachim Goller, Regional Road Logistics Manager, Kuehne+Nagel North America. “As more than 15 percent of the population in the United States are veterans, and these VA hospitals serve the entire country, we could not be prouder to have stepped up, and supported this important effort, which we know will make a difference in the lives of veterans and their families. This successful delivery proudly coincides with Veterans Day, so a huge shout out to the Road Logistics team for stepping up, taking on this extremely complex operation and making this happen in support of our veterans.”
