FROM HEART VALVES TO ROBOT VACUUM CLEANERS
Rhenus is a global logistics company. (Rhenus is Latin for Rhine, the river that was hugely important to the German company in the past, Ed.) The entire company employs around 33,500 people, who together generate an annual turnover of 5.4 billion euros. They do this by helping customers with their logistics issues. The Rhenus site in Tilburg-Zuid focuses specifically on customers in the medical and high-tech industries.
“We receive and store our customers’ products and ship them to where they are needed. We also handle the transport for many customers.” The work for our medical and high-tech customers varies greatly. “We handle heart valves and supplies doctors use in surgery, but also parts for robot vacuum cleaners and audio speakers. We receive them here, store them and then forward them to their next destination at the customer’s request. What impresses me the most is that our company really has a purpose. Thanks to our employees’ efforts, lives are actually being saved in hospitals.”
Rhenus also runs e-commerce operations at the Kraaiven Industrial estate, so it has two locations in Tilburg. “At our Kraaiven site, we handle the e-commerce operations of a pet food and pet supplies online shop. We take care of everything for this customer, from customer service to order preparation and distribution.”
TILBURG AS A LOGISTICS HOTSPOT
Rhenus has several locations in the Netherlands, two of which are in Tilburg. “There is a good reason for that. The city invests heavily in logistics, which means that Tilburg was named Logistics Hotspot of the Year twice in a row now.”
Why that is? “Tilburg is very centrally located in a logistics sense. It is close to the Belgian border with access to Southern Europe, and you can easily reach Eastern Europe via Germany as well. Moreover, Europe’s largest ports are just around the corner. In other words, the accessibility of the logistic flows is really perfect here.”
But these perfect logistic locations also bring challenges. “You notice that many logistics companies are located in this region. This also means that we are all fishing in the same pond in terms of staff. However, our company offers a lot to make sure that people enjoy working for us and will keep working for us for a long time to come.”
Bas has also noticed that the logistics industry doesn’t always have an attractive image. “That’s a shame. The logistics world is cool and incredibly dynamic. The logistics business is always in motion and has so much to offer. Fortunately, more and more people are now discovering this, partly because of locations like ours in Tilburg.”