US specialty chemical company Rohm and Haas has joined Gulf Agency Company's (GAC) logistics network and physical infrastructure base in the Jebel Ali Free Zone following a partnership deal announced recently.

The tie-up, GAC said, was designed to reduce Rohm and Haas' operating costs and improve customer service, which GAC was now undertaking. GAC is one of the region's foremost integrated logistics companies

"Our focus is providing the highest levels of quality service. Therefore it made perfect sense to partner with the region's premier logistics company which understands our vision of providing quality service throughout the entire supply chain," said Rohm and Haas regional deputy manager Montaha Hidefi.

GAC Logistics general manager Dag Bore expressed delight at providing a new dimension of logistics and back-office support to Rohm and Haas.

"This partnership is an example of our ability to go beyond a classic third-party logistical solutions and provide an added-value back office support functions customised to Rohm and Haas' exacting standards," said Bore.

GAC Logistics is part of the Gulf Agency Group of Companies, a worldwide shipping and logistics organisation. In the Middle East, GAC Logistics operates a number of state-of-the-art facilities, ranging from regional logistics in the Jebel Ali Free Zone to strategic stocking locations throughout the region. GAC, one of the first independent third-party logistics operators to set up in the UAE's Jebel Ali free zone, has worked with more than a hundred customers seeking a supply chain management solution.

The GAC's distribution centre is a 50,000 sq m state-of-the-art complex. The site facility has a total capacity of 55,000 pallet positions in high-rise racking, with temperatures ranging from an ambient 18C to a cold storage level of -25C. The complex has firewalls, fire doors, hoses, extinguishers and a highly sensitive early warning Vesda smoke-detection system, which is directly linked to the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority's fire brigade system.

GAC logistics division sales and marketing manager Damien O'Donoghue said logistics companies such as his own were benefiting from the gathering trend amongst manufacturers to delegate their warehousing and transport responsibilities to companies that could effectively deal with those issues, thereby lowering costs and enabling them to concentrate on manufacturing issues they could best tackle on their own.

GAC clients such as NestlŽ, Cadbury, Marks & Spencer for instance would not think it wise to spend a fortune on owning warehouses and transportation equipment and maintaining staff for their supply chain management when they could easily outsource the task to specialists.

O'Donoghue stressed that information technology had come to the help of logistics companies tackling complex operational matters including stock management, which involved keeping a track of considerable data. Logistic companies, including GAC, were also better able to provide services to their clients by setting up a customer relationship management (CRM) department to look into the volume of products and their value.

The official also said that GAC Logistics' growth was intrinsically linked with that of Dubai's Jebel Ali port. The port and the free zone had been successful in attracting volume container traffic, which was growing at a strong pace and strengthening Dubai's reputation as a business hub in the region.