The Perishable Center Frankfurt refreshes Customs communication with Scope from Riege
The Perishable Center Frankfurt (PCF) is the largest air cargo handling warehouse in Europe. At peak times, up to 700 tons of fresh goods are handled daily at Frankfurt International Airport. An excellent infrastructure and a sophisticated logistics service guarantee continuous cold chains and minimum transport times, thus ensuring the impeccable quality of a large number of different fresh products.
As a "Port of First Entry", the PCF is authorized in accordance with EU import regulations to import, inspect, store and process temperature-sensitive goods from third countries into the EU. Full recognition as an EU border inspection post gives suppliers and buyers the assurance that their goods are imported reliably and in accordance with regulations.
Using modern thermal trailers, the fresh goods are transported from the aircraft directly to one of 20 different refrigerated zones with monitored temperature ranges from -25 °C to +25 °C. On an area of over 9,000 m², 120 employees ensure the product-specific storage of the 120,000 t perishables per year, which are stored in appropriate climate zones according to their nature and are checked on site by the veterinary office, phytosanitary service and the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung, BLE).
A large number of other services such as loading ULDs, providing, preparing and presenting documents, storage and sorting of goods round off PCF's range of expertise in the field of import, export and transit.
Need for action to ensure security of operations
The central location in Europe, the good connection to the road network and the prompt access to the German and European conurbations make the PCF an indispensable partner for the import, export and transit of temperature-sensitive goods. Smooth processing also includes electronic communication with Customs. And here there was a need for action.
As a service, PCF takes care of safekeeping during import, outgoing clearance of export goods and further transport via transit procedures. After detailed analysis, it was no longer certain whether the existing processes could continue to meet the constantly growing demands. It was recognized that there was a need for action in order to be able to act safely in the future.
“We had been dealing with the issue for some time and it was clear to us that we had to act. Based on the experience our customer Lufthansa Cargo had with Scope, we decided to call in Riege for our discussions.”
Invitation to the expert panel
We gladly accepted the invitation to participate in the panel. In the course of the discussions, which were attended by Rainer Wittenfeld, Fred Koldevitz, Operations Manager, and Miltiadis Thomas, Administration Manager at the PCF, we were able to look into the PCF's requirements profile and express our ideas about using Scope.
“To be involved already at the stage of finding a solution was both an honor and a challenge for us, and it was therefore a matter of course to develop solution proposals.”
After the Operations Coordination department was also involved and had spoken out in favor of the team and scope, nothing more stood in the way of further action.
Implementation and operations
With its claim to be “The Digital Standard for digital logistics”, Scope is a perfectly functioning out-of-the-box solution. The standard setup for German Customs procedures ATLAS SumA, NCTS and AES Exit was correspondingly silent and users had no problems applying the procedures. The exchange of information works, and the processing accordingly. Even deadlines that cannot be met can be localized in advance, so customers can be informed in advance of expected delays in pickup or delivery.
Current application
In December 2019, 27 users in Frankfurt went live with the Scope Customs solution. The transition from the old to the new system went smoothly, with the current applications running as desired.