How it all started…
SMART HUB Logistics originally started as a stevedoring company, which was founded in the mid-70s and became known as StuwaLogistics. For decades, the stevedoring work was focussed on the loose loading of containers for Heineken’s beer export activities. The stevedoring was a real craft, and the employees were professionals, who knew how to utilise every square centimetre of a container. That deep-rooted craftsmanship is forever anchored in the DNA of our company.
Transformation to all-round logistics service provider
After having stevedored for one large customer for decades, the company made a gigantic change at the turn of the century. Under the leadership of the entrepreneurial director Frank Bruurs, the company transformed to an all-round logistics service provider for several customers. A process which took several years. The keyword became flexibility.
Vision with flexibility as the main component
Already in 2005 Frank Bruurs was considering the SMART HUB concept: a logistics facility near a container terminal, where companies can go for temporary or long-term logistics solutions and suitable warehouse space. Everything very flexible, without being tied to long-term contracts. From this vision he further developed the company.
One-by-one the warehouses which became available were filled by partners: companies in construction logistics, automotive and in fulfilment. The company name was changed to Spiering Smart Logistics (SSL). During the crisis years of 2008-2011, the vision’s key component of flexibility proved to be completely in line with ‘the new way of working’, in which the swift scaling-up or scaling-down of activities or of rented warehouse space became critical for many companies to survive.
