With almost 20 years of experience in express transportation, Corlan Trans has reached the maturity to propose to the market an efficient and flexible groupage service, offering the possibility of loading any type of pallet, regardless of height or weight. With a central warehouse in Timisoara and 5 other cross-docking centers in Porto (Portugal), Venlo (Netherlands), Barcelona (Spain) and, from 2024, in Bergamo (Italy) and Bucharest, Corlan Trans organizes weekly groupage lines from Timisoara to all 4 countries where it has depots. The plan is to switch soon to daily groupage lines, ensuring fast deliveries to all 4 countries. For this sophisticated and rigorous service, the company relies on its 49 own double-deck semi-trailer tractor-trailer combinations, operated by teams of drivers, as well as experienced dispatchers, who control the flow of goods through a software specially developed for the express company’s needs.
Corlan Trans was set up in 2005, when it started express transportation with Sprinter vans. Before the pandemic it had reached a fleet of 80 MB Sprinter vans and since 2018 and 2019 it has started to replace some vans with trucks, as orders were also coming in for heavier or bulkier goods, which it initially subcontracted, without the partners being able to maintain the quality of service Corlan had accustomed its customers to.
„We notify the customer by email when we show up for loading/unloading and when these operations have been completed, and, in addition, we send photos of the receipt of the goods at destination,” explained Cristian Corlan, founder of Corlan Trans.
In the pandemic, Cristian Corlan realized that if there are no more emergencies, transport recipients no longer need vans, but rather turn to truck transport, so he made the switch from vans to trucks, replacing 50 vans with 50 trucks in about two years.
The company continues to do express, but by truck, with transit times not much longer than for vans, because it works exclusively with driver crews.
Flexibility, an important asset in the groupage segment
In a highly competitive market only experience and creativity can make the difference between one carrier or another. And the efficiency gained from technological equipment and working procedures is the difference between profit and loss.
Corlan Trans has chosen to work with double-deck semi-trailers for greater loading efficiency and flexibility. These allow it to differentiate itself from other established groupage systems by offering flexibility at a competitive price.
„There are high-volume groupage systems on the market that impose many limitations: the pallet must not exceed a standard height and weight, it must be labeled, etc., whereas we load any type of pallet, even if it is 3 m, thanks to our double-deck semi-trailers. And we also do the labeling work as soon as it enters the warehouse,” said Cristian Corlan.
The company’s fleet includes 49 trucks with semi-trailers, 20 Sprintere for international and 10 Iveco Daily for domestic deliveries.
Also for greater efficiency in operations and to avoid empty runs, Corlan Trans has set up a mini-network of cross-docking depots in Porto, Barcelona, Venlo, Bergamo and Bucharest. In addition, the Timisoara-based company aims to offer daily shuttles to its four cross-docking depots. At the moment, the company offers the guarantee of delivery of goods to Portugal within 7 days. All the pallets of goods in the country are consolidated at the warehouse in Timisoara, from where the liner truck leaves on Thursday/Friday for Spain and Portugal, and from Monday already start unloading in Spain and from Tuesday in Portugal. And by Friday, when the truck leaves Portugal to Romania fully loaded, the consignments are being collected and consolidated for the next run.
Digitization a must for quality groupage service
In parallel with obtaining the courier license and implementing a self AWB solution, Corlan Trans has developed a special software for its activity that digitalizes the entire transport process from order taking to delivery.
The driver has to enter the cargo data into an application to create a unique ID, which is the element that is found on all physical or electronic documents related to the cargo. Labeling pallets is much more effective than inserting CMRs under a foil placed on each pallet, because such a way of working brings vulnerabilities: if the wind blows a few CMRs off the pallets, the driver has to waste time matching each pallet with the appropriate CMR to know where to deliver the cargo. And if one gets mixed up, it leads to misdeliveries with higher costs and dissatisfied customers.
The company is working on the possibility of integrating Ro e-Transport into its digital operating system, especially that in groupages the carrier has to be careful to receive ITU codes from multiple recipients in a timely manner.
Service and logistics as separate cost centers
Within the Corlan group of companies, there is also an independent reparings center, which maintains its own fleet of vehicles, but also services and sells tyres for third companies. The company also has a truck wash, a vulcanizer and tachograph station, so drivers do not have to take their trucks to different places to deal with all sorts of service problems.
At the same time, handling and labeling activities in the warehouses are carried out by an independent company – Corlan Logistic – which can also offer such activities to third parties. At the moment it works mainly for Corlan Trans’s groupage goods, but with the opening of the warehouse in Bucharest, the 3,500 m2 building in Timișoara can also offer warehousing and handling activities for third parties.
