Arc International and CONEX, the story of perfect collaboration in the launching of DELTA operations

Arc International and CONEX, the story of perfect collaboration in the launching of DELTA operations

Plain glass, Crystal, Opal glass, Borosilicate glass, Vitroceramic glass, Kwarx®: The Arc International Group manufactures 1 400 tonnes of glass or 6 million items everyday (70 items per second) and distributes tableware and decorative objects to more than 170 countries. Hypermarkets or specialised supermarkets across the globe are not content simply to sell the Group’s products to their customers, they are veritable ambassadors of the ‘Art de Vivre’, signed Arc International.

Jean-Jacques THYBAUT, transport and customs manager, is a logistics man, organising chartering and road and sea transport for the Group’s products. “From as early as September 2006, we started searching for the best way to prepare ourselves for the new customs procedure, DELTA, and we looked immediately to CONEX and its software package DELTApass. It was necessary to adapt a solution to our new ERP which was being set up by SAP. But we wanted even more: a made-to-measure product. In particular, we required a transmission tool to send maritime instructions to our forwarding agents. Only CONEX was capable of responding to this kind of request,” confides Jean-Jacques THYBAUT.

Impressive volume

In May 2007, electronic exchange procedures in order to communicate with French Customs were put in place by CONEX (DELTA D: electronic in-house customs clearance procedures):

• the customs clearance declaration, for the exportation of items to 120 countries and the importation of raw materials, equipment, tools and complimentary ranges (crockery, porcelain, cutlery),

• the ‘Intrastat’, enabling Arc International to invoice its European clients tax free.

The sheer volume of goods making up customs declarations speak for themselves: more than 11 500 declarations annually, 165 000 tonnes transported, with a value of 308 million euros. All this is now treated and sent through CONEX’s DELTApass connection. Everyday, 120 to 150 heavy trucks leave the Arques factory to deliver their goods. In order to measure the complexity of the data input required by French Customs and transiting via the CONEX platform, one single example will suffice: the 400 000 tonnes sent by Arc International towards other EU countries (representing 355 million euros in turnover) requires the submission of 27 500 declarations based on 79 000 different lines of French Customs tariff..

A real transfer of know-how

“After 3 months of using this system, via the Calais customs office, it’s a complete success,” confirms Jean-Jacques THYBAUT. This success can also be attributed to the fact that 10 colleagues were perfectly trained by CONEX at Arques (head office) and 8 others in our French production subsidiaries in Lille, Parthenay and Nîmes, as well as our English subsidiary AITUK. “The quality and the speed of this training made it possible for us to be immediately operational. Added to this is the relationship maintained with the CONEX team, an ear always ready to listen to us and above all able to be understood both by our customs specialists and our IT technicians. This is CONEX’s real strength,” concludes Jean-Jacques THYBAUT.