How Heineken automated primary + secondary distribution across 70+ countries with Shipsy TMS

How Heineken automated primary + secondary distribution across 70+ countries with Shipsy TMS

Heineken cut payments to logistics service providers for excessive stays at customer locations by 28%, reduced failed deliveries caused by “customer not present” by 50%, and lifted fully automated route settlement from 70% to over 90% — all on a single TMS platform spanning primary and secondary logistics across 70+ countries. On-Time Delivery climbed 8 percentage points. This is what unified distribution looks like for the world’s second-largest brewer.

Customer: Heineken. Industry: FMCG / brewery. Region: Global (70+ countries, 2M+ trips annually). Shipsy modules deployed: TMS (FTL + PTL), RPM Automation, Driver App, E-POD, Central Control Tower, BI & Incident Management. Headline metric: 28% drop in excessive-stay LSP payments, 50% drop in failed deliveries, automated route settlement from 70% to 90%+.

The challenge: 70 countries, 70 decisions

Heineken runs 2M+ trips a year across business units in 70+ countries — and for years each country sourced its own trip-management solution. The result was a fractured supply chain: no centralized view of KPIs, broken returns processes, manual POD collection on paper, and inconsistent fleet utilization visibility across regions.

Customer promise breaches were rising, but leadership had no single lens on why. Returnable Packaging Material (RPM) tracking — critical for a brewer whose kegs and crates are core operating assets — was largely manual. And the split between primary logistics (brewery to depot) and secondary logistics (depot to outlet) meant two different systems, two different data models, and endless reconciliation work.

Heineken needed one platform that could handle both legs, standardize execution globally, and automate the routine decisions that were eating operations-team hours.

The solution: one TMS across primary and secondary

Shipsy deployed its end-to-end TMS as Heineken’s global standard across FTL and PTL lanes.

FTL Automation handles load and cost optimization, truck building, vendor indent, execution, and visibility — so the system proposes the right trucks, at the right cost, with the right load plan before a planner touches it. PTL Automation handles allocation to carriers based on performance and cost parameters, automating the hundreds of daily allocation decisions that used to sit with regional ops teams.

RPM Automation digitizes Returnable Packaging Material returns — the kegs, crates, and pallets whose circulation drives a brewer’s working capital. Every RPM movement is now tracked, reconciled, and settled against the outbound shipment it belongs to.

The Shipsy Driver App and GPS integrations give Heineken end-to-end digital trips. Drivers capture Electronic Proof of Delivery (E-POD) — replacing the paper-based POD collection that had been the norm in many markets. E-POD flows back to the TMS in real time, feeding both settlement and customer communications.

On top of this execution layer sits Heineken’s Central Control Tower: a single pane of BI and incident management across all 70+ countries. Regional operations teams see the same KPIs, in the same format, with the same definitions. Exceptions — late arrivals, failed drops, temperature excursions, RPM mismatches — route automatically to the right owner with the context to resolve them.

Primary logistics and secondary logistics now share a common data spine. For the first time, Heineken can see a case of beer from brewery dock to outlet shelf on one timeline.

The outcome: the numbers that matter

The payout: payments to LSPs for excessive stays at customer locations are down 28%. That metric matters because excessive-stay payments are a direct signal of route-plan and customer-readiness mismatch — and Shipsy’s execution layer both reduced the stays and automated the adjudication of the ones that remained.

Failed deliveries due to “customer not present” are down 50%. Better customer comms (via E-POD workflows and automated notifications) meant secondary customers actually knew when a truck was coming — and Shipsy’s secondary-customer communication features drew enthusiastic feedback from the field.

Fully automated route settlement climbed from 70% to over 90%. That 20-point lift translates directly to back-office headcount freed, faster LSP payments, and fewer disputes escalated for manual review.

On-Time Delivery is up 8 percentage points — a compounding gain across 2M+ trips annually.

Together, these aren’t point-solution wins. They are the signature of a primary + secondary distribution network running on one operating system, from brewery to doorstep.

What’s next

Heineken continues expanding the platform into more markets and deepening the Control Tower’s autonomous capabilities. Next-phase priorities include tighter RPM reconciliation, expanded incident-management coverage, and deeper Control Tower automation so fewer exceptions require human intervention. The goal: a brewery distribution network where routine decisions execute without planner touch, and where the only exceptions ops teams see are the ones that actually need human judgment.