Ausa and Suffel, a successful cooperation that has a bright future

Two years ago AUSA designed a master plan to enhance its presence in the German market, expanding its sales force, committing demo machines, enlarging and diversifying Ausa’s dealer network, entering into the agriculture market, adapting the machines to the German customer’s requirements, investing in promotion and communication, engaging professionals in the after sales support department and a key point of such development was being able to deliver parts in less than 24 hours. As Mr. Josep Soler, AUSA Germany Country Manager says “to achieve such an ambitious goal, we must had the parts in Germany, stored them here, otherwise the best delivery times that we were getting from our forwarders were ranging from 36 to 48 hours, unacceptable for what we were pretending to achieve. Therefore we analyzed the situation and we found out that the best results could only be achieved cooperating with the best, Suffel”.

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Suffel Fördertechnik GmbH & Co is a well-know company in the logistics industry. The family company was founded in 1962 and it is the main private own dealer of Linde in Germany, selling yearly more than 4.400 Linde units. Suffel has 4 selling points in Main-Franken, Rhein-Main, Rhein-Neckar areas. In Aschaffenburg Suffel has more than 23.000 different parts for immediate delivery, which supports its 24/7 customer service.

Mr. Carsten Rustige, AUSA Deutschland After Sales and Spare Parts responsible declares: “we were astonish by the potential that Suffel was able to offer us, and we knew that they could achieve the service levels standards that we wanted to enforce here in Germany.”

Analyzing the first year of cooperation gives us a clear idea about the goals that have been achieved. Mr. José Ramón Durán, AUSA Center SLU Spare Parts responsible “looking backwards and analyzing the current situation, working together with Suffel has been fruitful, periodically we monitor our dealers and the service that we offer them, and we see that we have step them up, offering in 2013 a 90% service level, to an outstanding 94% in 2014, which means that we are very close to Automotive Industry standards, which stand at 95%. For 2015 we have set up even higher standards, and improving some processes to achieve outstanding service levels above the rest of the industry”.

In 2015 Ausa will also launch an After Sales Program which has been designed and it will be developed by a very well experienced professional, who comes from the automotive industry, Mr. Roger Tornero. Mr. Tornero worked by Volkswagen Group, and it was responsible for the Spare Parts and After Sales department in the Volkswagen Audi Group in Spain. By AUSA, as he declares: “during 2014 we have been designing the new After Sales Program, which will be complementary to the machines’ sales, and it intends to offer to our customer base a Total Solution. That’s to say, once an AUSA customer acquires a machine, AUSA will take a proactive roll, to support and to assure that the machine works and offers the best performance to him, but of course,  to develop such a plan we need a strong partner as Suffel, who should assure the spare parts availability and it will need to execute the link between future spare parts demand with current spare parts demand, which basically means a change the mind set from a reactive roll to a proactive one. This new approach taken from the automotive industry will be implemented along the 2015, and it will allow us to position AUSA brand a step forward in the industry”.

Mr. Rudolf Barth, Suffel Spare Parts responsible is fully aware about the potential that AUSA offers to the German market, and the commitment that AUSA has shown to set up higher standards, “the cooperation between both companies has been very positive, and we are proud of it, AUSA’s customers are satisfied with the work done by both companies, and we are looking forward to the future, we know that developing the new After Sales Program in 2015 will be challenging, but it is a key point for the coming success, and I am aware that it will mean a breakthrough in the industries where AUSA is present, and we will be a key part in the implementation of the program”.