Tag Archives: Technology

Keystone Foods Improves Supply Chain Visibility with SaaS TMS

Keystone Foods is a multi-national, multi-protein processor for the world’s leading brands, providing fresh and frozen protein products to customers worldwide. Keystone processes poultry, beef, fish and pork and is dedicated to food safety as well as quality. The company runs 50 facilities that serve about 6,400 restaurants around the world. The Keystone Food Logistics Services Group is part of the Keystone U.S. distribution business, which has four distribution centers servicing the quick serve restaurant industry. Keystone Food Logistics Services stores and ships every item customers require using a private fleet while handling inbound through contract carriers. Keystone typically handles 500-700 loads per week.

Keystone ran several business case scenarios in search of opportunities to grow business while reducing supply chain costs. The company determined that centralizing its internal freight and launching a new logistics service would be the most profitable route. Historically at Keystone, freight was managed in a decentralized manner, so each individual manufacturing facility managed transportation. The company used both asset-based carriers and brokers to handle freight. Lanes consisted of transfers of raw materials between facilities, fresh and frozen products to customers, cold storage facilities as well as inbound ingredients from suppliers.

Keystone created a wishlist for a revamped transportation management system that included:

  • Visibility into real-time supply chain information
  • Collaboration with everyone involved in the freight network
  • Centralized data on common platform
  • Ability to benchmark and establish KPIs
  • Reduced overall transportation costs

Keystone selected a true software-as-a-service (SaaS) TMS to improve overall supply chain management in a collaborative environment. The collaborative platform enables Keystone to manage the entire freight process, from optimizing mode to routing shipments to managing carrier selection while ensuring capacity commitments are met. Additional benefits include:

  • Real-time monitoring of the entire freight process – everyone is in the loop so plants can continue producing and meeting customer demands
  • Orders received automatically and loads tendered to carriers directly through the system
  • Automated processes and reporting, providing access to data that was not available previously
  • Visibility to all carriers and rates in the system, so Keystone knows it is selecting the best possible rate for a particular lane
  • Electronic scheduling gives total control of appointments for each facility while being configurable to a specific schedule and dock
  • Easy to use system for carriers and other users who are not traditionally computer savvy

By leveraging transportation technology, Keystone is now able to:

Improve Visibility: A central data repository enables visibility for analysis of costs and performance measurement to uncover areas for improvement.

Reduce Costs: Keystone saved 5% of overall freight spend and received quick payback of four months.

Increase Collaboration: With all parties in the transportation process having access to the system, Keystone gained insight into how freight impacts operations.

This entry was originally posted on Logistics Viewpoints, read the full article here >>

Managed Procurement Services Allow Companies to Optimize Transportation Investments

truck-procurement-freight-capacity

Transportation sourcing is a significant challenge for many companies. Typically, the procurement process to identify potential new carriers and award business requires a major investment of resources. The transportation team must develop a request for proposal (RFP), follow up on carrier responses, evaluate multiple award scenarios, and implement new carriers into the mix. In many cases, companies do not have a dedicated resource to manage the freight procurement process, resulting in usage of key personnel from other areas to support the sourcing event. This is disruptive to current operations, and prevents the development of functional expertise to drive continuous improvement in the transportation network.

Lack of carrier profile data, vetted capabilities and industry benchmarks are also common issues for many companies.  Without comparative data points, companies do not know if carriers are costing too much or if lanes are inefficient.  Capacity can become an issue but it remains unclear if that is due to the current carrier’s inefficiencies or if more carriers are required to meet demand.

Managed procurement services that combine transportation procurement skills, knowledge of carrier capabilities, and supply chain expertise, can optimize a company’s transportation investment.  These types of procurement services provide industry benchmarks and innovative technology to more efficiently and effectively handle transportation procurement.

Typically the managed procurement process begins with a holistic review of a company’s lanes and rates to determine which need attention to best deliver on overall corporate goals. By comparing performance internally against external industry benchmarks, managed procurement service providers focus on out-of-tolerance conditions, identify new carrier opportunities and discover strategic cost and service improvement opportunities.  Once a company’s current performance is analyzed, a transportation procurement project plan is created.

This entry was originally posted on Logistics Viewpoints, read the full article here >>

Global Logistics: A View From Above

World Trade Magazine | A View From Above

Global Trade Magazine featured an article in the November/December 2012 issue about cloud-based supply chain software and how exporters are enabled with the latest technology to track shipments. This is an excerpt of the article, read the full story here >>

There are places in Africa where it is generally expected that up to 20 percent of shipments could go missing. A ship arrives at port, cargo gets unloaded onto one of several trucks which then motors off and never arrives at its destination, yet presumably comes back for more. The trucks operate in a round-the-clock continuous loop from port to factory in an effort to clear the ship and have it on its way as fast as possible, though no one knows when one of those trucks goes off route and goods are stolen. Consider this the extreme example of why tracking cargo is so important in today’s supply-chains, but knowing where your cargo is—whether it be a supplier’s inbound shipment or your own product en route to a distributor or end user—isn’t just a valuable tool, it’s a necessity for any company committed to being competitive.

In today’s world of collaborating in the cloud, there are many options for end-to-end supply-chain management software that will handle everything but spending your profits. Massive networks of suppliers, warehousers, 3PLs and transportation companies, buyers, brokers, distributors and more all converge in a hub—or in some cases, a “platform”—each adding to the tens of thousands of data points which create a visualization of the supply-chain. Variations on the software abound, but the gist remains the same: Cut down lead times by giving shippers a visualization of each link of their supply-chain, enabling them to react in real time to exception events.

And yet, at what point do you know when your latest shipment to Africa has been appropriated by undesirables? As powerful as most of the existing supply-chain management software is in providing just about every necessary service from one end to the other, widespread, true real-time tracking in-context that can actually be pinpointed on a map still represents the future…[FULL ARTICLE]

[WEBINAR] Managing Transportation | Register Now

Thursday, August 23rd | 2:00-3:00 PM EDT | REGISTER NOW

AEP Industries, a leader in flexible packaging products, doubles in size every four years through acquisitions and new market opportunities. From meat packaging to shrink wrap to garbage bags, AEP produces over 15,000 types of multi-purpose packaging films and ships out roughly 1.4 billion lbs. of freight annually. As the company continues to grow, AEP centralizes transportation management with LeanLogistics’ SaaS-based technologies.

With a scalable transportation solution, AEP is able to:

  • Gain complete visibility into new and existing business units
  • Improve carrier relationships and secure capacity
  • Mitigate costs & acquire new business without adding resources

Space is limited. Reserve your webinar seat today.

Reduce Transportation Costs with SaaS Scheduling Solution

Truck dock

Scheduling and managing shipments has never been more complex or costly than today. Fuel cost increases, limited access to funds for reinvestment in equipment, and a shortage of drivers, have limited carrier options. When combined with increased demands for quicker
response, faster delivery, flexibility with order changes, and smaller shipment sizes, the situation becomes even more diffi cult to manage.

Many companies are still scheduling these complex shipments through a manual process supported by spreadsheets, increasing the chance of errors. Even those with programs or standard processes still fi nd it diffi cult to communicate the transportation schedule with everyone that needs to be involved. From simply opening the loading dock or shipping location at the right times in order to ensure coverage, to making sure there’s enough manpower available to manage the workload, a lack of visibility into a company’s shipping schedule can cause frustration, idle time for workers, and customer service issues due to missed delivery deadlines.

Some companies attempt to solve these issues by adding more personnel to the transportation department. Unfortunately this typically just increases costs and creates even more opportunity for errors through decentralization of this important piece of transportation and logistics management. What if companies could easily share their schedule of shipping needs, have access to carrier availability and see real-time performance metrics that help fully optimize their transportation department?

Web-based scheduling solutions, such as LeanLogistics’ LeanAppoint, are a carrier-friendly, easy way of organizing a company’s transportation schedules on a SaaS platform. With SaaS scheduling solutions, companies no longer have to rely on spreadsheets or written calendars to manage the transportation schedule. Everything is visible and manageable through an intuitive, online program created to provide greater insight into both carrier and company performance.

Learn how LeanAppoint transportation scheduling solution helps companies save 2-5% from accounts reductions and process savings >>