TNT has opened today a new international transport hub in Heerlen, the Netherlands, which isdedicated to next-day deliveries of medical devices to European hospitals and clinics.
The 2,000 sqm facility is located close to the European distribution centres of 80 major medicaldevice manufacturers. The healthcare hub will handle medtech shipments from multinationals and SMEsround-the-clock, seven days a week. TNT will thus be able to make next-day deliveries of medicaldevices to 96% of Europe’s hospitals counting 16,000 in total.
The majority of the devices to be shipped are needed in surgery such as pacemakers, artificialknee joints and surgical products.
Customers from the medtech industry in the south of the Netherlands and nearby areas of Belgiumand Germany will profit from late collection times and thus be more flexible in handling ordersfrom hospitals. Additional estimated benefits for customers include an inventory decrease of 3.5%on average, lower costs of urgent deliveries and improvement of warehouse and transport contingencyplans.
The Heerlen site is connected to TNT’s European road and air networks via the company’s hubs inDuiven, the Netherlands, and Liege, Belgium. TNT will also operate direct road connections betweenHeerlen and several European countries such as France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and theUK. These direct connections increase reliability through reduced transshipping. Same-day deliveryis also available for emergency shipments.
“The new facility will help meet growing demand from medical device and equipment manufacturers,large and small, that need a reliable transport solution to serve hospitals in Europe,” Erik Uljee,Managing Director, TNT Benelux, said.
“The healthcare sector is one of the most important industries for us, as highlighted in ourOutlook strategy. Our German customers specialised in medical technology will profit from ‘close toborder’ service expansion,” Willem Prinsen, TNT CEO Germany, added.
The company also offers various dedicated services for the global and local transport ofpharmaceutical products, test medication and biological samples. Earlier this week, it announcedthe launch of a new transport solution called Pharma Express Basic targeting specificallypharmaceutical companies or wholesalers who supply pharmacies and other facilities in thehealthcare system. It offers cost-effective, non-temperature-sensitive, door-to-door expressdelivery of pharmaceuticals in compliance with the current EU guideline “Good DistributionPractice” (GDP).
