Leek (Netherlands), – Vinturas, a consortium of leading Automotive logistics service providers in Europe, today announced that it will operate a digital, blockchain based platform, to provide end-to-end visibility in the supply chain of finished vehicles.
Today’s automotive logistics infrastructure is characterized by scattered information flows and multiple legacy systems, making it impossible to trace vehicles on their way to the dealer. (Mileage) fraud is a growing concern in cross-border processes in Europe. Vinturas will digitalize all aspects of the supply chain, from factory to dealer, and will also cover the logistics process for used vehicles in Europe, all designed to lead to more transparency, to greater efficiency, to an improved customer journey and to lower costs.
Improve customer journey
Creating visibility in the supply chain can help dealers to inform their customers about the location and the estimated time of arrival of new vehicles and thus considerably improve the ‘customer journey’ for their customers. The Vinturas platform will allow OEM’s and fleet owners to manage their European flows on a near-real time basis, improving planning, optimizing inventories and networks and saving costs. Vinturas will contribute to a more efficient, sustainable supply chain infrastructure in Europe.
Founding members
Behind the initiative are four ‘founding members’, all respected logistics service providers for the Industry. Axess Logistics, NVD, Koopman Logistics Group and Autolink Group ensure that the services of Vinturas can be delivered in a large number of European countries from the launch of the platform in September 2019.
EML, a large sea-carrier in Europe will also contribute to the platform to provide visibility for the sea-bound part of the automotive supply chain.
Partners
Vinturas is supported by strong partnerships. IBM (NYSE: IBM) as technology partner will provide the expertise to build the Vinturas platform. Grant Thornton, with its auditing, legal, advisory and blockchain expertise, will be a partner of Vinturas.
Leading platform
The CEO of Vinturas is Jon Kuiper. Kuiper formerly CEO of Koopman Logistics Group brings a wealth of senior executive experience in supply chain management from various global corporations. Jon Kuiper: “Vinturas aims to be the leading platform in Finished Vehicle Logistics. We strongly believe in the power of collaboration. The launch of Vinturas with four well-known logistics service providers and our choice of IBM as technology partner shows our long-term commitment to delivering sustainable value”.
Democratic data-sharing
Vinturas is an open eco-system and thus accessible to all players in the field of Finished Vehicle Logistics. Therefore software companies, logistic service providers and other application providers are also invited to work with Vinturas. The key benefit of working together is the ability to share data in a secure distributed blockchain infrastructure. Kuiper: “We do believe the future of our industry is in collaborating and democratic data-sharing. By working together, we can unlock significant value for all players in our industry”. IBM provides Vinturas proven blockchain technology, ensuring secured data-sharing, immutable records and creation of a full digital record of a vehicle’s lifecycle in the supply chain.