Boels Rental

Boels Rental, one of Europe’s largest rental firms, initiated a company-wide digitalisation project aimed at optimising the customer experience, implementing operational excellence and reducing stress levels for staff. Simacan was selected to achieve the desired progress - and the project was a success, according to Reiant Mulder and Wim Cambré. “Customers no longer have to phone us. They can see precisely when their rental equipment is going to arrive.”

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Boels Rental at a glance

European headquarters in Sittard, The Netherlands
>730 offices in 18 European countries
>840.000 equipment for rent
>7.200 employees

From earth movers to wallpaper steamers, from trailers to chainsaws and from forklift trucks to emergency generators… this is just a small selection of Boels Rental’s huge range of rental equipment. And it is available for anyone – not only companies in construction, the offshore industry and manufacturing, but also event organisers, independent contractors and consumers. In the case of consumers, they can pick up and return rental equipment at a Boels branch near them, whereas Boels often takes care of the logistics side of things for its business customers. To this end, the rental specialist has a European network of storage hubs and its own fleet of vans and trucks. The company also outsources around 50% of the transport activities for equipment delivery and collection to logistics service providers in its pool.

Stressful delivery process when the address is not clear

The rental sector is characterised by rush orders and sudden decisions. “The construction industry is particularly hectic,” says COO Reiant Mulder. “Companies need the machines and equipment as soon as possible, and are often impatient.” It’s not uncommon for people to call Customer Service from a construction site to double-check whether a truck really is on its way to them. The delivery process is often stressful because it’s not always clear where exactly the customer wants the goods to be dropped off, not least because many construction sites don’t yet have an official address. The result: a lot of phone calls back and forth between drivers and construction workers. “This dynamic is inherent to the construction industry and we’re very capable of dealing with it at Boels. It currently still involves a lot of effort and stress, but we’re working on smarter ways of doing things in the future,” continues Mulder.

Company-wide digital transition

Boels Rental has grown rapidly in recent years, partly through sizable acquisitions. Today, the company encompasses over 750 branches and has a great deal of expertise and entrepreneurial spirit. However, there were some gaps in its IT landscape, plus not all branches were connected to each other. As a result, if a customer called the centralised customer service department, it wasn’t always possible to confirm the precise delivery status. “We started a large-scale transition project in 2020 with the aim of achieving uniform processes and systems throughout the company,” says Wim Cambré, supply chain consultant and project lead. “Boels has become a corporate company, so it now needs to be managed in a corporate manner. This requires a streamlined operation that focuses on three cornerstones: customer excellence, operational excellence and people excellence.”

More predictability for customers

Cambré explains how Insphire’s ERP system, specially designed for the rental industry, will form the backbone of the company’s new IT landscape, with a prominent role in the transport process for Simacan’s Control Tower and App2Track’s driver app. “Renting equipment should offer the same customer experience as ordering something from a travel website or a web shop. The Simacan platform plays an important role in this because it improves the level of predictability in the last mile. Customers can see exactly when the truck carrying their rental equipment will arrive.”

In addition to calculating reliable ETAs and providing track & trace information, Simacan also facilitates collaboration between all stakeholders in the rental process. The Boels planners, the drivers, the customers, the on-site recipients and the logistics service providers all have access to the same information and can communicate efficiently with each other. Reiant Mulder: “People no longer have to phone us, and this virtually eliminates delays caused by miscommunication. The app guides drivers to their destination, and no longer need to worry about customers impatiently waiting for them. This prevents mistakes and ensures safer driving.”

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

Now with the use of Simacan people no longer have to phone us, and this virtually eliminates delays caused by miscommunication. The app guides drivers to their destination, and no longer need to worry about customers impatiently waiting for them. This prevents mistakes and ensures safer driving.

Reiant Mulder

Chief operations officer @Boels Rental

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Efficient claims handling

One valuable functionality for Boels Rental is that comments and photos can be uploaded to the execution data, says Cambré. “The rental equipment is sometimes damaged or dirty when it’s returned. In that case, the driver can take a picture of it directly on site. This ‘evidence’ is then saved in real time with a timestamp and the GPS coordinates so that there can be no discussion afterwards about where the damage occurred. This data enrichment makes the entire handling and insurance process more efficient and ensures that the costs are allocated fairly.”

There is also another advantage, according to Mulder: “Our own technical department can see this information too, so they get advance warning of any problems with a machine before it arrives back at the hub. This allows them to schedule the necessary cleaning or repair work and mark the equipment as temporarily unavailable in our rental system.”

Lower carbon emissions

By digitalising its processes, Boels intends to boost the performance and utilisation rate of its entire logistics operation. “Because we can see the precise time at which an item has been delivered, down to the exact minute, we can monitor our own delivery performance as well as that of our logistics service providers,” comments Mulder. “Together with all contextual data, we can analyse why a driver arrived too early or too late, and prepare an overview of all the bottlenecks. This will allow us to continuously improve our service. Plus complete transparency about logistics service providers’ performance and the hours driven by them will make the invoicing process a lot easier.”

“Once we have everything in one system, Boels will be able to leverage the synergy benefits between branches,” adds Cambré. “We’re now working with set districts that are each served by one hub, but sometimes it might be more advantageous to source a rental item from a different hub – such as if the relevant item isn’t available in the standard district, for example, or if the trip will be more efficient, involving fewer kilometres, from another hub.”

Mulder also expects Simacan to help Boels and its transport partners to reduce the number of ‘empty’ trips. “It’s not unusual for a customer to cancel or change their rental order at the last minute, in which case a driver goes to a location for nothing,” he says. “We’re able to prevent this with Simacan because even a last-minute change is immediately visible to everyone, so the planner can adjust the trip in time. As a result, every trip will be a ‘real’ trip. This will improve the performance of our network as a whole, with fewer kilometres and therefore also lower carbon emissions.”

Customer focus and enterprising outlook

Boels Rental is the first company in the rental industry to choose the Simacan platform. Do they regard that as somewhat risky? Mulder: “That’s not an issue for us. What we like about Simacan is how customer-focused the platform is, and their experience in the home delivery and parcel industry. That sector is ahead of the rental sector in terms of last mile, so for us it’s an opportunity to learn. Another thing I like about Simacan is their young, enterprising company culture and the fact that they have a similar geographic focus as we do. Like Boels, they are focusing on the Benelux region for now, with plans for further growth in Europe based on that. That’s very similar to how we’ve approached this project: our first hub in Bleiswijk is now live, and from there we’ll be rolling out the IT systems across the rest of the organisation.”

Proven concepts