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Category: News VSL SiloLogistics
Promising start of VSL SiloLogistics in Lillo.
Since the beginning of October, VSL SiloLogistics has been operating as an on-site logistics service provider at chemistry giant INEOS in Lillo (Belgium). By now, some 30 VSL employees, under the management of the newly hired Site Manager Leo van Overeem, are working on the site of the Antwerp port area. 'On Friday 2 October we were still on the sidelines', he says. 'But after a weekend of ploughing on, we were ready for it. That Monday morning, VSL SiloLogistics started as the fresh and flexible new partner of INEOS Lillo. A promising start, as it was in many ways ‘business as usual' right from the start. Everybody just took up the reins again.'
VSL has ensured that there has been an adaptable, efficient and safe logistics operation ever since, in and around the 60,000 m2 warehouse, on the packaging lines, at the silos and the internal and external transport of the polypropylene and polyethylene produced on site. 'We jumped on a train going at full speed here in Lillo', says Leo van Overeem, who has been working in the logistics sector for almost 25 years. 'Not an easy task of course, but a good challenge. Look at the human side of it, for instance. There are so many changes within a short period of time for all people involved. For colleagues who were already working in logistics here, as employee of our predecessor.. Now they are working for VSL SiloLogistics, a totally different company, which has a different view on things and a different culture. But also for colleagues who have come from other VSL branches to Lillo, for the people from INEOS and for the newly recruited people, of which I myself am one. If you had told me six months ago that I would now be working long days in Lillo, I would have said you were crazy!'
Those long days are far from over for Leo van Overeem. 'You know that, when you start something like this. All parties have to invest in such a start-up phase and everybody seems to be well aware of that. Apart from the operation, you get to deal with all sorts of things, from incorporation ups and downs to staff recruitment, from cultural differences to unfamiliarity with new machines. My aim in the short term is clear: to ensure a well-running operation. At this point, I am setting everything else aside to achieve that. Once everything is going well, we can look further, for example to the further development of our partnership. There are important markets for INEOS that seem to be picking up, something which offers growing opportunities for both of us. I also expect that INEOS will take great advantage from the flexible attitude of everybody at VSL SiloLogistics, because that is something that has really surprised me in a positive way since I came to work for this company ...'
December 2009