The complexity and fast pace of the Deutsche See business are challenges also felt at the company’s logistics department in Bremerhaven, located next to the production facilities.

The company’s “ultra-fresh products, with an average shelf life of up to five days from production make things mega- difficult,” Wolfgang Zeitz, head of logistics at the firm, told IntraFish. “We have to plan every little detail. Storage time is basically zero. We receive the raw material, process it and send it out to our clients, all within 24 hours.”

Zeitz has been with Deutsche See for 26 years, and has seen the company go through some change over his time there, to say the least. In the wider scheme, however, the main features of Deutsche See’s logistics systems haven’t changed much over the years: the product moves from production facility to distribution centers right to the market.

Ideas on how to increase efficiency are not amiss, but flexibility is paramount. When I ask if there are days when everything goes according to plan, it's met with peals of laughter. Even the slightest issue, be it delayed arrival of raw material, a batch that falls through a quality check, or a production issue can result in a full-blown problem.

“Sometimes it’s just pure stress,” said Zeitz. His team starts working at 5 a.m. every morning, when the first batches of fresh fish and seafood arrive. For most of the raw material it's a short stay in Bremerhaven.

The first trucks, loaded with 50 to 80 pallets of finished products each, leave the facilities already by 2 to 2.30 p.m. -- it's a "critical phase" for Deutsche See every day. The system is simple: Munich gets the first truck because it's the furthest away. Hamburg gets the last one because it's closest.

In peak season every branch gets two truckloads, but on normal days it can happen that one truck supplies two of the branches. Deutsche See is working with five transport companies, “which are proud to bear our logo on their trucks,” Zeitz said. Also their drivers have to adhere to the strict Deutsche See quality standards and fulfill certain criteria.

Google Glasses, drones: logistics in the 21st century

Zeitz and his team are constantly on the lookout for ways to improve efficiency and reduce the risk of errors happening along the supply chain. New projects include a drone for perpetual inventory taking. Zeitz is looking into using Google Glasses with spec sheets instead of scanners. “These things have to be economically feasible of course," he said.

In 2007, Deutsche See took a big step by introducing reusable boxes, made of high-density polyethylene (HDP). The system works like a deposit return scheme and is used with both suppliers and customers. It’s environmentally friendlier than disposable polystyrene boxes and has a special feature: water can exit through holes on the lower side of the boxes.

By stacking them a certain way that melt-water is collected, not dripping on the fish underneath, Felix Clüver, deputy head of operations at Deutsche See, told IntraFish during the production tour earlier that day.

However, one negative aspect is that “the box doesn’t isolate very well,” Zeitz said. That might be one reason why some suppliers and customers still prefer conventional polystyrene boxes.

"We cannot ignore the opportunities IT and digitalization has to offer to logistics."

Wolfgang Zeitz, Deutsche See

He hopes to install radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips on the blue and turquoise boxes soon. The little chip could replace manual scanning and register information via sensors whenever they enter or leave a Deutsche See facility.

“We cannot ignore the opportunities IT and digitalization has to offer to logistics,” Zeitz said, adding at times he feels Deutsche See is a bit “too advanced for our suppliers. The fishing industry is still very backward; other food industries are light-years ahead.”

Digital makeover

IT and digitalization is not only a big subject in logistics, the whole company will soon work on the “latest state-of-the-art digital technology,” Lars Ketelsen, director IT & digitalization at the firm, told IntraFish.

Ketelsen described himself as one of the “youngest Deutsche See members.” He joined 1.5 years ago and is leading a team of 12 developers, who have been working on a centralized IT system for the company.

“Deutsche See is a big, middle-sized company, running on 70 servers,” he said. “It’s highly complex but not yet state-to-the-art.”

The new system will integrate “everything” and it will be cloud-based. Purchasing and sales systems will be combined. The roll-out of the new system – Deutsche See’s new “digital brain” -- will kick off at the branch in Hamburg in January and then be implemented Germany-wide through summer 2018.

The biggest challenges in the implementation process will be “change management” within the Deutsche See structures, Ketelsen said. The first training sessions with employees have already started. “We hope the new system is going to be accepted. One of the challenges is also to meet the status quo.”

If there’s one thing Deutsche See is used to, then it’s change. Back in 2013, it took the chancy step and entered the e-commerce business with the trial of an online shop for end consumers in Berlin, which then rolled out Germany-wide at the end of 2015.

“We definitely had to prove ourselves,” Nicolai Gruhn, product manager e-commerce at Deutsche See, told IntraFish. “We were a bunch of young guys with a new technology and a completely new target group: the end-consumer.

Integrating the shop into the “long-standing structures of the old tanker Deutsche See” was by no means easy, he said. The shop required smaller portion sizes, the products new packs. “We couldn’t offer the same products; it was value creation on a whole different level. We had to fight and it’s a process that's still going on.”

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Click back tomorrow for part four: Online shop and e-commerce. How does a B2B-focused firm cope with handling end-consumers?

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Deutsche See: From Google Glasses to drones, company willing to merge high-tech with tradition