Supply Chain Operations Improvement

Supply Chain Operations Improvement – Make your operations lean while keeping it nimble

Logistics & Transportation Report Card

A logistics report card

  • Provides a comprehensive report on company’s current state of logistics
  • Identifies and quantifies opportunities for improvement
  • Prioritizes focus areas driven by business objectives
  • Determines action items and next steps

The scope of this study includes understanding client’s logistics requirements and a quick evaluation of:

  • The distribution network
  • The warehouse operations
  • The transportation modes utilized, including:
    • Small package
    • Less Than Truckload (LTL)
    • Truckload
    • Intermodal
    • Air and
    • Ocean

As it Relates to

  • Service requirements and standards
  • Rates and carrier programs
  • Carriers used
  • Associated management processes and policies
  • Technology implemented
  • Freight audit, GL coding, and payment
  • Logistics reporting capabilities – data capture techniques, reporting systems and reports leveraged
  • Logistics budgeting process
  • Technology, automation and integration of associated logistics management systems
  • Application of WMS and TMS if not deployed and maturity of use if deployed
  • Customer service as it relates to logistics

Firms with best-in-class logistics can often move their goods to market for just half the costs paid by their middle-of-the-pack rivals.

The deliverables include

  • A 1 – 2 page report on applicable categories highlighting
    • baseline spend
    • maturity of existing processes and systems,
    • areas of opportunity
    • attractiveness of the opportunity
    • complexity and degree of effort required
  • Recommendations on prioritization
  • Sequencing of focus areas based on business objectives
  • Next steps and timeline

Project Time frame: 4 – 6 weeks

Warehouse Study

The warehouse study is a quick win to address day to day operational challenges as well as strategic transformation of your warehousing operations. The study typically addresses the following issues:

  • Low on-time ship performance
  • Increasing operational costs
  • Incorrect inventory information
  • High resource overtimes
  • Incorrect shipping and increased returns
  • Capacity constraints & bottlenecks

Our deliverables from the study include performance and cost benchmarking, gap analysis and recommendations for improved processes and efficiencies by leveraging appropriate tools, equipment, and infrastructure. We also assist our clients with Outsource vs in-house evaluations and 3PL contract negotiations.

Typical benefits of a warehouse study include:

  • 20 – 25% improvement in same day shipment
  • 20 – 30% improvement in labor productivity
  • Substantial reduction in overtime
  • Improved capabilities for Plan2Execute-channel fulfillment

Project Duration: 4 – 8 weeks

Transportation Opportunities

Leverage our transportation expertise to cut costs while maintaining or improving carrier service levels.

Our knowledge of the latest trends in the market combined with our tools and technologies will help you benchmark your current transportation costs and performance and help improve your.

  • Core carrier programs
  • Contract management
  • Transportation planning & execution
  • Least cost routing
  • Capacity availability
  • Spot market leverage
  • Order and shipment consolidations
  • Freight and route optimization

Our service answers the following questions:

  • Is our contract pricing competitive for the service we get?
  • What should the core carrier network look like?
  • What is the right balance between contract and spot market carriers?
  • What is the ideal modal mix to attain the desired service levels?
  • How can we improve least cost routing and what is the impact of out of route shipments?
  • Should we use a 3PL or manage our transportation in-house? Should we use dedicated or private fleets?
  • How can we recover revenue appropriately on customer paid freight?
  • What is the efficient process to file and recover claims?
  • Should freight be part of COGS or separated out as a line item? Do we pay for inbound freight or let our vendors pay for it?
  • What are the potential drop ship and direct ship opportunities?
  • What should our processes, systems and organization associated with transportation management look like?

Custom modules in one system

Often times, a company may have a system – legacy or otherwise, that may not have the required functionality, regardless of the price. In such cases, it becomes difficult to justify replacing the existing system for want of a few specific functionalities. For instance, certain forecasting requirements may require advanced analytics and even if you have some kind of a planning system, the specific required algorithms may not exist. By leveraging our predictive analytics modules, you can transfer just the appropriate data required, generate the forecast and send it back to your existing planning system seamlessly.