Boels Rental

Boels Rental, one of Europe’s largest and most reliable rental firms, is striving to become the largest in Europe through an ambitious growth strategy. To successfully realise this geographical expansion and scaling-up, Boels is focusing on the digitalisation of its European logistics processes. Simacan is supporting and advising them throughout this journey.

Boels Rental at a glance

Headquarters in Sittard, Netherlands
830 branches in 27 European countries
>850,000 rental items in the assortment
>8,500 employees

From earth movers to wallpaper steamers, from moving trolleys to chainsaws, from forklifts to emergency generators – this is just a small selection of Boels Rental’s huge range of rental equipment. The recent acquisition of Riwal has significantly boosted their fleet of aerial work platforms. Boels serves a wide range of customers, from construction companies, offshore industries, and manufacturing firms to event organisers, freelancers, and even consumers. Consumers can pick up and return their rented equipment at a nearby Boels branch, while the logistics for business customers are often handled by Boels themselves. To this end, the rental specialist has a European network of storage hubs, its own fleet of vehicles, and a pool of logistics service providers. About half of the delivery and collection of equipment is outsourced to these providers.

Stressful delivery process when the address is unclear

The rental industry is characterised by urgency and ad-hoc decisions. “The construction industry, in particular, is hectic,” says COO Reiant Mulder. “Companies need the equipment quickly and are often impatient.” When a truck is on its way, people from construction sites frequently call our customer service to check if it’s really en route. The delivery process can be stressful because it’s not always clear exactly where the customer wants the goods to be delivered, especially as construction sites often don’t have an official address yet. This results in a lot of back-and-forth communication between drivers and construction workers. Mulder: “This dynamic is inherent to the industry, and we are well-equipped to handle it. However, with the implementation of Simacan, we expect these processes to simplify and become much smarter.”

Digital transition focused on efficiency, innovation, and sustainability

Boels Rental has experienced significant growth in recent years, driven partly by strategic acquisitions like Riwal. The company benefits from the entrepreneurial spirit and expertise within its organisation, fostering broad support for innovation and research. This focus is aimed at improving efficiency, innovation, and sustainability. In 2020, Boels initiated a large-scale transition project aimed at implementing uniform processes and systems across the organisation. This initiative is built on three pillars: Customer Excellence, Operational Excellence, and People Excellence. The digitalisation of their European logistics processes, supported by Simacan’s intelligent Control Tower and Aventeon’s driver app, is also a key part of this. Boels is now fully prepared for future success and further growth.

In our initial conversations, it soon became clear that our Simacan platform would be tremendously helpful to Boels Rental with their goal of gaining visibility into and further developing the entire transport chain.

Koen Vierveijzer

Customer success manager @Simacan

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European rollout

A key requirement for Boels is that new logistics tools meet the needs of their users. For the logistics processes, they have opted for a combination of Simacan’s Logistics Control Tower and Aventeon’s driver app. This combination allows Boels to optimise their logistics processes. Through a bottom-up approach, supported by sessions and workshops involving Boels’ planners, drivers, logistics managers, and representatives from Simacan and Aventeon, Boels is being helped with the optimal setup of these tools and prepared for the European rollout. A phased "ramp-up" approach has been chosen, with the implementation and use of the software gradually increasing. Initially, Simacan will be rolled out in the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, followed by expansion to other European countries. The goal of the ramp-up is to manage risks and allow adjustments based on early feedback before full implementation. For the rollout to other European countries, local stakeholders are given the freedom to make adjustments where necessary or even decline the full implementation. Therefore, it’s vital for Simacan to ensure that the solution fits Boels' needs as closely as possible from the start.

Continuous improvement of service

With the implementation of the Simacan-Aventeon combination, Boels will be able to improve their service to customers and simultaneously gain valuable insights into how to optimise efficiency, reduce costs, and even lower emissions further down the supply chain. “We can’t wait to see the first improvements in customer service,” says Richard de Vries, process improvement manager at Boels.
By digitising processes, Boels expects to take the performance and utilisation rate of its entire logistics operation to the next level. “Because we can see precisely when an item has been delivered, we can monitor the performance of both our own deliveries and those of our logistics service providers. By analysing the contextual data, we can map out bottlenecks and continuously improve our service. Furthermore, full transparency regarding the performance of our logistics service providers and the hours they’ve driven will also simplify the invoicing process” says Mulder.

Lower CO2 emissions

With Simacan, Boels and their transport partners expect to reduce the number of ‘empty trips’. Mulder: “It’s not uncommon for a customer to cancel or modify their rental order at the last minute, in which case a driver heads to a location for no reason. With Simacan, we can prevent this because such last-minute changes are immediately visible to everyone, allowing the planner to adjust the route in time. As a result, every trip becomes a real trip. By reducing the number of kilometres driven, we can lower CO2 emissions while improving overall performance.”

Customer-focused and entrepreneurial

Boels Rental is the first company in the rental industry to select Simacan. Does that carry any risks? Mulder: “Not at all. What we appreciate about Simacan is the customer focus of the platform and their experience in the home delivery and parcel industries. Those sectors are ahead of the rental industry when it comes to the last mile, so there’s a lot we can learn from them. I’m also impressed by Simacan’s young, entrepreneurial company culture, and their geographical focus on the Benelux region is similar to our own. Like Boels, they’re focused on the Benelux as a starting point for further expansion into Europe, and this approach fits perfectly with our rollout strategy.”

Proven concepts