Logistics is defined by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) as "the part of supply chain management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods, services and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customers' requirements."
If that seems like a lot of responsibility, it is. Logistics plays a vital role in the nuclear industry and here at Westinghouse, where it oversees the flow of all shipments to and from company locations across the world. That includes everything from ensuring that an overnight letter arrives at a potential customer’s office to designing the loading plans for an ocean shipment originating in Asia bound for the AP1000® plant construction sites in the southeastern U.S.
Taking on these varied, complex tasks requires an experienced staff at Westinghouse locations throughout the world, including three sites in western Pennsylvania (USA); Mannheim, Germany; and Nivelles, Belgium. Our team includes individuals with the following expertise:
• engineering, to develop plans for lifting, rigging and stowing all major equipment;
• operations, to design the routes and transport plans, as well as coordinate each step of transport from pickup through final delivery; and
• sourcing, to develop specialized suppliers, secure contracts with those suppliers and manage the relationships.
Additionally, a specialized transportation team at our nuclear fuel manufacturing sites in Springfields, Lancashire (U.K.), and Columbia, South Carolina (USA) oversee the shipment of fuel assemblies to our global customer base.
The Westinghouse Logistics team manages hundreds of shipments each week for all Westinghouse product lines throughout the world. Recently, Westinghouse delivered the first steam generators to both V.C. Summer Units 2&3 and the Vogtle Units 3&4 AP1000 plant new-build sites in the U.S. These components, each of which weighed more than 1 million pounds, were the largest shipments that we have managed to date. In fact, the South Carolina Ports organization said the AP1000 plant steam generator was the heaviest, single piece of cargo imported through that gateway.
Intensive planning for the steam generator transport began five years ago, requiring the team to account for changing conditions and modifications. During mid-December 2014 the first steam generator arrived from Korea at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina. Within six hours it was safely off-loaded and secured to the Schnabel car, a specialized train to transport large shipments. We began the 140-mile journey from the port on January 2, 2015, and arrived at the V.C. Summer site on January 4.
I am proud of our team’s oversight of this particular project, as well as the overall dedication to high standards and continuous learning that each Logistics employee displays when supporting global shipments.
Learn more about delivery of a steam generator and our expertise in Logistics in this video:
Carl Rossi
Global Logistics Director
Westinghouse Electric Company