Knowledge engineering company SKF has won a five year contract with Metso Lindemann, the global supplier of equipment, services and process solutions, to manage its worldwide wear and spare parts warehouse and distribution operations. The agreement will see SKF supplying Metso Lindemann's customers in the mining, construction, power generation, oil and gas, recycling and pulp and paper industries across the globe, on a daily basis, from a state-of-the-art central distribution centre in Tongeren, Belgium.

With 1,500m² of indoor storage capacity and another 3,000m² of outside storage, the distribution facility will receive nearly 2,000 unique product references from the Metso Lindemann factory in Duesseldorf, as well as from external suppliers.

As part of the contract SKF will provide services for inbound operations, warehousing, value added services, customer service activities and outbound operations for spare and wear steel alloy or casted replacement parts to destinations worldwide.

Bernhard Kock, Vice President Services at Metso Lindemann, explained, “Our partnership with SKF is the ideal complement to our logistics system as they offer us the opportunity to meet our customers' demands faster and more efficiently. We are now able to react directly to the needs of our customers and to changes in the market situation.”

SKF has been supplying the Metso Group with bearing and lubrication services and technical support for more than 30 years and more recently began supplying Metso’s Mining and Construction division with integrated logistics solutions.

Anders Forsberg, Director at SKF Logistics Services, said, “With this agreement we have strengthened our partnership with Metso by adding logistics services to an already established cooperation. Most importantly, it helps our customers optimise their integrated logistics solutions, giving them a competitive edge in terms of costs, services and flexibility.”