Ship's Spares Hamburg

If a ship on its way to Mauritius is suddenly only travelling at half power because a cylinder liner is defective, this can have incalculable consequences for the ship operator – both monetarily and in terms of reputation.

In these emergency situations, our clientele, which includes shipping companies and ship managers, relies on MBS Logistics as a competent partner.

“We bring the small sealing ring to every port on board a ship, to every corner of the world or to specific coordinates at sea, just as we do a 70-tonne ship’s propeller when necessary,” explains Thorsten Schmidt, who is also responsible for Ship’s Spares in Hamburg, among other things. “Although the majority of our work relates to transports that can be planned for our customers’ ship’s parts, there are always unforeseeable emergency situations that then require immediate transport planning in the closest cooperation with our customer to supply the ship. It’s exactly this mix that never lets the job become a routine and presents us, as well as the customer, with new challenges.”

With Ship’s Spares Services, MBS Hamburg offers, among other things, a global “door-to-deck” delivery service. This covers warehousing, transport, supply chain management, ship supply and marine and offshore support. How much time is available then determines, in addition to the budget, which means of transport can be used for delivery. “We take responsibility for the entire supply chain,” says Schmidt, “this already begins with the takeover at the supplier and ends with the transfer to the ship.”

Since MBS added the emergency logistics product MBS Anytime to its portfolio in 2017, MBS Hamburg has also been working with colleagues from Anytime departement in Cologne.
Incidentally, the ship that was on its way to Mauritius was one of the most recent thrill projects that MBS Hamburg was able to bring to a happy end. “This was at the Corona peak time, where air traffic was on the ground. We had to bring a cylinder liner to Mauritius so that the ship could continue from there at full speed again. The corresponding spare part was stored in our warehouse in Shanghai and flights from there to Mauritius were not possible at the time. Our customer then found a supplier in Rotterdam who had the relevant spare part in stock in Rotterdam. Through communication with the supplier’s after-hours service over the weekend, it turned out that the cylinder liner could already be taken over on following Monday. Thanks to our good contacts with the airlines, we were able to book an appropriate flight in this case despite the weekend and offer our customer a solution. We then won the bid.. On Monday we took over the goods in Rotterdam, on Wednesday they were in Paris, from there they were flown as express freight to Mauritius and from there to the port. At the port, a barge was loaded to deliver the spare part to the ship. The ship then used its own crane to take the cylinder liner on board on Sunday.

It is clear that the transport costs exceeded the value of the spare part several times over, but the losses for the shipping company would have been immense due to the loss of charter and port berthing fees,” says Thorsten Schmidt.

What makes Ship’s Spares in Hamburg so successful? “We think in a customer- and service-minded way. Proactive communication is our top priority. We inform our customers about every step that is relevant for them. In addition, we not only have our own office-based warehouse in Hamburg, but can also provide our customers with worldwide depots. Likewise, the use of our efficient network also guarantees that we can offer our clientele a service that spans the globe. In addition, we have very high quality and security standards that convince our clients. And of course our availability, which we guarantee 24/7. I have already heard from customers that no one answered the phone at our competitors,” says Schmidt with a twinkle in his eye. “That doesn’t happen with us.”            ■