Mantrac CoE logistics team has successfully delivered 25 Cat 320 Excavators and 25 front arm attachments for Iraq's Ministry of Water Resources (MOWR), moving the goods from both Brazil and Japan and still achieving all logistics targets for ocean freight cost and lead time.

The agreement with the customer in Iraq in early 2021 was to deliver the units already assembled with the attachments. With the excavators coming from Brazil and the attachments coming from Japan, it would prove to be a costly mission.

The first plan from the sales office was to ship the units and attachments to Jebel Ali, UAE, to be assembled and shipped from there to Iraq. The cost of shipping under this plan was around US$12,059.48 per unit for the excavators only, and total lead time would have been around 90 days without assembly time.

Proposing another plan, CoE logistics suggested shipping the 25 Cat 320 Excavators from Brazil and the 25 MISC MATERIAL attachments from Japan directly to Iraq.

With the CoE logistics team's second plan, they succeeded in getting an ocean freight cost of US$7865.20 per unit from Brazil to Iraq with a transit time of 75 days. Meanwhile, the attachments were shipped directly from Japan to Iraq at an ocean freight cost of US$2,757 per two units in one 40ft high cube container.

Thanks to good teamwork, all logistics targets were met and the customer agreement was delivered successfully in May 2021.