The French group Seqens (formerly Novacap), founded in 2003, is a recognized player in pharmaceutical solutions and specialty ingredients. With more than 3,000 employees in 24 production sites and 7 R&D centers worldwide, Seqens is the world leader in Salicylic Acid and Aspirin and a major player in paracetamol.
In February 2020, following the rout of the transport world with the COVID crisis, Seqens entrusted part of its shipments to OVRSEA. The reactivity of the teams and the digitalization brought by OVRSEA allowed them to ensure continuity in the management of their transport, in a period marked by uncertainty and instability.
Following this first successful collaboration, Seqens decided in March 2021 to entrust part of the shipments to the North American market of its ConsumerHealth Care business unit to OVRSEA.
Before employing OVRSEA's services, Seqens lacked a summary table of all its shipments, and had to extract data in a static Excel spreadsheet to view information related to shipments to the United States. This process was complex and did not provide optimal visibility into Seqens' transportation flows.
OVRSEA has enabled the centralization of Seqens' transportation on a single digital platform. Thus, the various actors of the head office, the Roussillon and St Fons factories and the American teams now have easy and quickaccess to a dynamic dashboard of all the transports to the United States.
In concrete terms, the logistics manager simply enters the reference of a transport request into the platform to obtain the key information associated with it:
As a result, Seqens' Consumer Health Care business unit can now track its goods in real time and stay informed about the status of current shipments thanks to thetracking tool and real-time updated data (ETD/ETA, transport cost, possible variations related to the shipment...).
The OVRSEA platform allows a collaborative management of the platform. Each shipment is assigned to a Seqens employee. If a collaborator is absent, one of his colleagues can take over the shipment file, find all the history on a single page and be notified of the main events related to the shipment. Seqens can thus ensure the continuity of the management of its shipments to the United States and prevent any break in service. This real-time information sharing extends to all the actors involved in the supply chain of the business unit: Logistics Managers, Sales Administrator (ADV), Business Safe Operator of the St Fons and Roussillon plants, but also the team present in the United States.
Prior to OVRSEA, when a shipment change occurred, the Logistics Manager would notify other stakeholders involved in the shipment (such as sales administrators) by email.
The OVRSEA interface now allows them to send information directly to the right people: for example, sales administrators are connected to the platform and receive live notifications. This feature reduces the number of emails exchanged and reduces the risk of information being lost between the various parties.
This results in a considerable time saving for Seqens, which can be more reactive to changes in the dates of departure or arrival of goods.
Before the collaboration with OVRSEA, in case of delays or changes in an order to the United States, the Seqens logistics teams were notified by the American subsidiary. There was no possibility of being informed in real time, nor was there a regular update of the transport data.
The company now receives immediate and proactive notifications of ETD/ETA changes, as well as a summary email.
Before OVRSEA, there was no real follow-up or feedback on possible delays because updates were not made regularly. Now, on the OVRSEA platform, all you have to do is type the transport request number in the search bar and the information appears instantly, which saves a lot of time. As soon as something happens on a transport operation, we are directly informed.Philippe Limone,Logistics Manager@Seqens EDS
Since Seqens entrusts its shipments to the United States to OVRSEA :
OVRSEA's reactivity facilitates the daily life of Seqens' teams and brings them a more serene management of their transports.
This partnership of trust is also based on the personalization of the service and the support provided by OVRSEA. Seqens has an OVRSEA expert, Fanny Le Dortz, entirely dedicated to its flows and transport problems.
As soon as an unexpected situation occurs (changes in orders, rate variations, strikes...), the Seqens teams are contacted by Fanny Le Dortz from OVRSEA who presents them with a solution: in turn, they can immediately inform and reassure their end customers.
Last summer, Seqens faced emergency situations that had direct repercussions on the organization of transport: the availability date of the cargo could not be respected, thus disrupting the shipments.
In order to face these unexpected situations and find solutions quickly, Philippe Limone, logistics manager of Seqens, had a weekly meeting with Fanny Le Dortz, his dedicated expert from OVRSEA. Fanny could then propose new dates for the departure of his transport and remedy these disruptions related to production.
OVRSEA is quickly solve problems and bring something new to the transport business.
Philippe Pessina,Global Supply Chain Director @ Seqens EDS
Thus, for each problem that occurs on a shipment, Seqens benefits from advice and is provided with a solution by OVRSEA. This allows Seqens to better communicate with its end customers in the United States (pharmaceutical laboratories, cosmetic companies, industrial companies, homecare) and to provide them with a better quality of service.
The support and reactivity of the OVRSEA teams is particularly appreciated: for us, we manage global flows with a lot of uncertainties, it is essential to have a quick communication on the events that can occur - if only for our teams, but also for our customers.
Philippe Pessina,Global Supply Chain Director @ Seqens EDS
OVRSEA's dual technological and human approach has enabled them to meet Seqens' expectations, while achieving the quality of service the company needed. Reactivity, reliability and simplicity allowed them to optimize and simplify the management of their flows towards the American market.
