KION Moves the World – and Transport Service Provider Urban Moves KION

Urban-Transporte GmbH, based in Unterschleissheim (Germany), is one of the lesser-known brands in our KION Group. But the 550 employees play an important role in the Group: They handle the majority of the transport work along the entire value chain from the supplier to the Linde Material Handling and STILL production plants and on to the customer. Depending on the location, there are also the necessary storage and shipping activities.

This company name can easily lead to misunderstandings in international business calls. This is because the "urban" in Urban-Transporte GmbH does not mean "inner-city," and the company is not – or at least not exclusively – involved in finding innovative answers to the challenges that pose for the transport industry. Instead: "Urban is quite simply the surname of our company founder," says Felix Becker, Managing Director of Urban-Transporte GmbH, with a grin.

In 1965 – the year when the Beatles released "Help" and "Yesterday," color television found its way into German living rooms and an astronaut left his spaceship in space for the first time – local transport entrepreneur Xaver Urban founded Urban-Transporte GmbH in Pullach im Isartal near Munich (Germany) together with Linde Gas GmbH. Prior to this, Xaver Urban had been transporting gas for Linde as a contractor for many years – initially with a single truck.

"Just a few years later, Urban was almost indispensable for the Group thanks to its reliability, flexibility and high quality standards," says Managing Director Felix Becker. The business grew rapidly and, in addition to further locations in Germany, the company set up Urban Logistics Ltd. Basingstoke in England, Urban-Transporte spol. S.r.o Moravany in the Czech Republic and Urban LOGISTICA S.R.L in Italy.

The founding of Urban LOGISTIQUE SAS in France in 2003 marked the beginning of spare parts logistics at Urban-Transporte. And since Linde AG spun off its industrial truck division with the STILL and Linde Material Handling brands in 2006, the transport company has been part of our KION Group. "In recent years, we have therefore focused primarily on forklift logistics," says Maik Thomsen, Head of Central Function Transport at Urban Transporte GmbH.

Urban-Transporte GmbH is no longer just responsible for transporting production parts from A to B. The brand is now developing innovative concepts to contribute to the value chain of KION customers worldwide. One example of this is the return system for lithium-ion batteries, as used in modern electric forklift trucks. "We have developed a solution for the critical transport of defective batteries that complies with the latest dangerous goods regulations. We therefore see ourselves as an industry benchmark," explains Maik Thomsen.

"We have digitalized processes, expanded the range of services and made optimum use of synergies," says Thomsen, describing the company's further development in recent years. Due to its early integration into central KION projects, the brand has played a key role in the KION Group's logistics. The company is still headquartered in Unterschleissheim, a town of 25,000 inhabitants, with additional branches in Aschaffenburg, Hamburg and Reutlingen. There are also locations in the UK, Poland, France, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic.

Today, Urban-Transporte GmbH offers a comprehensive range of services, from national and international transport by road, sea and air to intermodal solutions. "There are also special services such as warehouse logistics and wheel assembly," says Maik Thomsen: "What is important here is the seamless flow of information, which is currently still handled by our own Urban systems. Plans call for everything to be run in the future through the comprehensive use of KION's Business Transformation Project. "Business Transformation" is a global KION project in which the data management of the KION brands will be standardized via common IT system and process landscapes.

To mark the 60th anniversary of Urban-Transporte GmbH, the management team has decided to further strengthen its own image both within and outside the KION Group. This includes a new vision statement that sums up the ambition of the entire company – and which was jointly formulated in English by the management team in line with the global orientation of the brand: "With Passion and Performance in integrated logistics services, we enable Supply Chain Excellence for KION."

"The new vision statement focuses even more on the performance and commitment of our employees," says Commercial Director Matthias Tiedge. Without the passion and commitment of the entire team, the brand's 60-year success story would not have been possible, explains Tiedge, and adds: "We would not be where we are today without the good and long-standing collaboration with our colleagues throughout the KION Group."