Business Situation

The Northern Corridor of East Africa connects Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi to Mombasa through Nairobi and handles approximately 1 million containers annually. There have been numerous challenges in reducing road, rail and port costs within this region, mainly due to operational inefficiencies, which could be seen in the excessive rail transit times of 7-9 days from Mombasa to Kampala and back. Transit times between Mombasa and Kampala via road averages 10 days, which points to major inefficiencies. We were appointed to establish a joint operating centre and control tower in Mombasa, Kenya to manage road and rail transport on the Northern Corridor of Kenya. The joint venture has signed a grant agreement with the Logistics Innovation for Trade Challenge Fund (LIFT) for the design and implementation of the EAJOCT. The goal of the EAJCOT will be to reduce downtime and costs in the Northern Corridor supply chain.

The EAJOCT will aim to integrate the supply chain from origin to destination as well as amongst various cargo owners. In addition to integration on an operational level, the EAJOCT will aim to integrate all stakeholders on a strategic and tactical level as well. As part of the proposal, a control tower will be implemented which will house a Logistics Operating Control Software backbone. This will serve to provide real-time information regarding the sequencing, scheduling, routing, tracking and picking of containers for inbound and outbound logistics for all stakeholders within the container movement supply chain.

The roll-out of the EAJOCT concept will be the first of its kind in East Africa and entirely new for Africa in that the proposed EAJOCT in Mombasa will be built on the backbone of an intelligent sequencing, scheduling, routing, tracking and picking software to provide adequate information for real-time decision-making. This software was previously implemented in various companies including DHL in Kenya to enhance their supply chain management capability. The project will be rolled out in 4 phases, namely a diagnostic phase (1st phase), design phase (2nd phase), setup and implementation phase (3rd phase) and a pilot/roll-out phase (4th phase) and phase 1 is currently under way.

Transnova's Role

• Implementation of an operational control centre to enhance road, rail and port operations on the Northern Corridor of Kenya
• Enhancement of operational efficiencies by integrating all stakeholders in the supply chain on a strategic, tactical and operational level
• Operation as a single organisation, where normal business functions occur in unity along the supply chain instead of operational silos
• Improved transparency and communication through a single integrated technological backbone for tracking and tracing containers

Why This Case Study Is Relevant

• We have know-how and on-the-ground logistics expertise in Africa and have multinational and in-country experience in gathering data and on-the-ground information that measures product flows across a supply chain
• We have significant experience in development across the supply chain
• We have experience mapping supply chains and experience with large-scale maturity analysis and market segmentation in developing countries in Africa
• Previous relevant experience including economic business case development, large-scale maturity analysis and market segmentation