Siemens Healthcare new time:matters customer for the time-critical spare parts logistics segment

Siemens Healthcare new time:matters customer for the time-critical spare parts logistics segment

* The special service provider for courier, sameday and emergency logistics takes on the spare parts supply for Siemens Healthcare in the Scandinavian countries and Italy
* Following Fujitsu Siemens Computers, time:matters was therefore also able to gain a corporate customer from the Siemens Group within a short time
* Reduction in storage and competition surrounding high quality after-sales service increase the demand for quick and reliable spare parts logistics solutions

Neu-Isenburg/Munich/Erlangen - time:matters, the special service provider for courier, sameday and emergency logistics which is part of the Lufthansa Group, has gained Siemens Healthcare (Erlangen, Germany), a business unit of Siemens AG, as a customer for the time-critical spare parts logistics segment and entered into an according cooperation agreement with retroactive effect from April 1, 2008. time:matters has therefore taken on the spare parts supply in the Scandinavian countries as well as Italy for Siemens Healthcare, one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry. Siemens Healthcare manufactures and distributes a wide range of live-saving and vital high-tech equipment for clinics and doctors' offices - such as diagnostic systems and therapy equipment, but also complete IT solutions.

Following Fujitsu Siemens Computers, time:matters has within a short time, been able to gain another corporate customer from the Siemens Group for its logistics services. For instance, time:matters maintains a special "innight network" for Siemens Healthcare, which ensures that spare parts for sensitive medical equipment can be transported overnight from the spare parts warehouse to the place that they are needed - within twelve to 14 hours. Therefore, it is for example possible to ensure that a component, which is urgently needed for the repair of a defective magnetic resonance tomograph, is picked up at the spare parts warehouse at 18:30 and is already at the respective clinic's disposal at 8:00 the next morning. In addition to the "innight service", other services can also be implemented and are selected according to the individual needs of each specific case of application. This includes services such as Courier Solutions or "Onboard Couriers." Less time-critical deliver!
ies are also covered in the transport portfolio for Siemens Healthcare by means of "overnight service" or thanks to an "end of business day"-concept.

Since time:matters especially foresees growth with regards to time-critical spare parts logistics, the logistics service provider established its own unit - time:matters Spare Parts Logistics, which combines special expertise in this area. The contract partner of time:matters Spare Parts Logistics on the Siemens side is the central department Global Shared Services (GSS), Logistics Management, which externally represents the Siemens sector Healthcare and whose job it is, among other things, to negotiate new potential in terms of cargo bundling between the Siemens sectors and external companies. "The agreed cooperation with time:matters represents a great opportunity for the Siemens sectors to reach a high service level with favorable cargo rates," says Jürgen Kindereit, Director Logistics Management at GSS, explaining the prospects of Siemens' transport network.

According to time:matters CEO Franz-Joseph Miller, the increasing need for customized flexible, but at the same time quick and reliable solutions for spare part logistics mainly arises from the fact that an increasing amount of branches of industry are, due to cost reasons, abandoning decentralized means of storage in favor of centralized storage. Therefore, Siemens Healthcare has concentrated the approx. 40,000 stored stock items, which must remain available as spare parts for the company's high-quality products, to just three distribution centers worldwide and a few regional warehouses. Up until a few years ago, the company stored these items in several decentralized warehouses located throughout the world. "It is obvious that over the course of this development, the challenges facing spare parts logistics have significantly increased and will indeed continue to do so," says the time:matters CEO.

The ever-increasing importance of after-sales service also contributes to the continual rise in the demand for reliable spare parts logistics solutions. For instance, Siemens Healthcare sends off around 650,000 spare parts and delivers in over 160 countries per year. "The quality of the after-sales service plays a decisive role for us - especially since the delayed delivery of spare parts for many of our products would lead to incredibly high costs associated with downtimes and our customers' dissatisfaction," explains Heiko Ansorge, Head of Strategic Transport Management at Siemens Healthcare, Material Logistics. Dr. Frank Debus, Vice President Material Logistics, adds: "Centralized storage in the respective time zones constitutes the basis of our global spare parts supply. With the commissioning of time:matters we are essentially pursuing one goal: to continue to offer our customers an uncompromising and highly-flexible quality of service in the future - in the form of del!
iveries that are both fast and reliable."

time:matters GmbH (Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt am Main) is the expert in courier, sameday and emergency logistics as well as in international time-critical spare parts logistics, offering each of its clients customized logistics solutions for particularly urgent or complex special logistics assignments. The Special Speed Solutions provided by time:matters both throughout Germany and worldwide are based on the high-speed and reliable transportation of highly urgent and particularly important consignments by air, rail and road. For this purpose, time:matters can access Lufthansa's entire network of scheduled flights and a number of flights offered by other partner airlines (i.e. "Star-Alliance"-Partners, Swiss International Air Lines, Air Berlin, Condor): over 1.200 European and 150 intercontinental flights per day, and some 400 destinations in 90 countries. Whenever air charter solutions are needed, time:matters also closely cooperates with Lufthansa Cargo Charter Agency. Sin!
ce August 2007, time:matters operates its own terminal for express and courier shipments as an additional service option at Frankfurt Airport. Furthermore, 140 train stations Germany-wide - through which InterCityExpress, EuroCity and InterCity trains pass - are currently available to the logistics service provider. In 2006, the partnership with Swiss WorldCargo and the founding of the first branch office outside of Germany in Zurich, Switzerland, marked the start of the intensified internationalization of the time:matters business model. Thus further subsidiaries and/or offices were opened in Vienna, Warsaw, Singapore, Shanghai, Manila and time:matters Netherlands BV was established following the take over of a company in Amsterdam. The establishment of additional offices in important business and logistics centers is to follow by 2010, whereby the focus is on Asia for 2008. Following a partial overtake of the company shares in 2006, the logistics service provider is major!

ity-owned by funds managed by the growth investor Buchanan Capital Par
tners as well as the management of time:matters. Lufthansa Cargo AG, which spun off time:matters in 2002, owns 49 percent of the company shares.