Permobil is a global developer and manufacturer of advanced mobility solutions, with its roots in Sweden. Its Sundsvall operation brings together design, R&D, assembly and production, with a particular focus on wheelchairs and mobility products.

Across Sundsvall and Timrå, Permobil handles around 350–400 outbound shipments every day.

The products leaving Sundsvall vary considerably in size and configuration. Unlike many manufactured goods, they are products their users may depend on every day for mobility and independence, making a reliable handoff from production to transport especially important.

The challenge

At the end of production, transport booking relied heavily on manual work. As each powered wheelchair was completed, shipment information had to be processed manually, down to individual box level. Different sizes and configurations meant repeated administration at the point where a finished product needed to move from production into outbound logistics.

Permobil wanted to remove that manual data handling and connect the information already held against the order directly to the transport booking process.

Previously, there was a lot of manual work involved in getting a finished product ready for transport. We were booking shipments individually, down to box level. With nShift TMS, we’ve been able to automate much more of that process and create a smoother flow from production to dispatch.

Martin Barkman

Logistics Manager EMEA, Permobil

The solution

Permobil already used nShift for manual wheelchairs and spare parts after that production was moved from Stockholm. Powered wheelchairs became the next outbound flow to be brought into nShift TMS.

  • Shipment bookings are now created automatically from the underlying order data. Employees no longer need to re-enter the same information at the transport stage, and the required shipping labels are generated automatically as part of the process.

  • This connects transport more directly to production: once a wheelchair is ready to leave the line, carrier bookings are created through nShift TMS, and the required shipping labels are generated automatically rather than becoming a separate manual task.

  • Through the same setup, nShift's carrier network gives Permobil the flexibility to work with different transport providers without a separate manual booking process for each one.

Transport becomes part of the production process. Once a product is ready to leave the line, the information required to ship it can move with it rather than becoming a separate manual task.

The advantage for us is that the transport process becomes part of the production flow. We don’t want our teams jumping between different systems and manually handling every shipment. With nShift TMS, we can automate that process and still have the flexibility to work with different carriers as our needs change.

Martin Barkman

Logistics Manager EMEA, Permobil

The results

Permobil is already removing close to three hours of repetitive transport administration from every production day for its powered wheelchair flow.

For Martin and his team, the improvement in data quality is particularly important. Booking directly from order data reduces the manual handling behind each shipment, helping keep the information passed into the transport process consistent.

The impact currently includes:

  • around 34 powered wheelchair bookings automated each day
  • approximately five minutes saved per powered wheelchair
  • 2 hours and 50 minutes of manual work removed each production day
  • carrier bookings created automatically from order data
  • automatic shipping-label generation
  • fewer manual data-entry steps

Permobil now plans to extend transport automation into the spare-parts warehouse for powered wheelchairs, where the team expects further significant time savings alongside the same improvement in booking quality as more outbound flows move into nShift TMS.

For a company whose products support people's mobility and independence, reliable movement from production into transport also has a direct connection to the customer experience, beyond logistics efficiency.

For our users, these products are about mobility and independence. That makes the delivery part extremely important as well. We want the whole process, from production through to transportation, to work as reliably and seamlessly as possible.

Martin Barkman

Logistics Manager EMEA, Permobil