Aachen, August 11, 2005

Extension and Upgrade of the Truck Control System SyncroSupply at DaimlerChrysler AG, Plant Bremen

Every day more than 1000 high-class cars of Mercedes C-class sedan, C-class combi, CLK, SL and SLK roll off the production lines at the Bremen plant of DaimlerChrysler AG.

Since 1988 the transport control system SyncroTESS has been in use at Bremen for the control of internal transports and the transports to and from the field warehouses. The system assumes the automatic control of fork-lift trucks, Unimogs and tractors for trucks as well as the automatic dispatching of trucks with trailers and single trailers. In 2002 the truck control system SyncroSupply was installed as pilot project. Since then SyncroSupply has been fully automatically controlling all JIT /JIS deliveries to the loading places within the plant taking into account the capacities of parking-lots and loading places as well as the needs of the production.

Until the end of this year the system will be enlarged in order to control all material deliveries and the entire transport of empties. In the context of this extension the system will be upgraded to its latest version and the planning module will be added. The planning module offers DaimlerChrysler the possibility to create a slot time matrix for the whole plant as well as for each single loading place. This time slot matrix is made available to the forwarders via internet, where forwarders can reserve slot times. On a forwarder's request for time slots, SyncroSupply automatically calculates the best tours and displays them for selection.
In the new system the transfer of control instructions from SyncroSupply to the truck drivers will also be effected via automatic SMS messages (generated by SyncroSupply) to the mobile phones of the drivers.