Previous Projects

Transportation Planning and Capacity Optimization

Problem: The plant of one multi-national company produced both finished goods and products that required further processing. The finished good product group was sent to a local third-party storage location to await Quality Assurance release. As a result, past business practice had been to manage the interplant transfers these products as two separate streams.

Solution: Our analysis determined that the company had zero of QA incidents in the past three years and adequate controls for managing releases while product was in transit. The in-transit QA release facilitated the elimination of the third-party storage requirements. In addition, it enabled the plant to combine the two product streams for shipment to their finished goods warehouse and their midstream processing plant located in the same city.

Result: The new logistics model, with the two product streams combined, enhanced truckload capacity utilization and resulted in a 30% reduction in shipments between the plant and the downstream locations.

Problem: This regional retailer had a distribution operation that utilized a third party trucking company to ship restock orders to their retail outlets weekly using multi-stop truckload deliveries. They were looking to lower overall supply chain costs and wanted to know if their current contractual service provider arrangement represented good value for money. After reviewing their contractual agreements, assessing shipment methodology, volumes and destinations we determined that their contract pricing and terms were favorable. However it was also determined that the current load planning process was broken and many outbound shipments had large chunks of unutilized space.

Solution: We helped the company implement some load planning tools and move to a dynamic routing process that enabled them to more effectively consolidate their shipments and reduce the number of outbound loads.

Freight Procurement, Contract Design and Negotiation

Problem: This food manufacturing had a long history with a regional LTL carrier. The relationship between the client and the carrier was beginning to fray as service levels were in decline and the carrier, aware of their near monopolistic market position, was pricing aggressively.

Solution: Our detailed lane analysis led us to believe that the client’s freight volumes anchored many of the lanes of this carrier and loss of the client’s volume would make many lanes uneconomical to serve. Having no competitive alternatives to leverage, an in-sourced freight model was developed that indicated a scheduled multi-stop delivery platform could reduce costs significantly.

Result: Armed with this knowledge, senior level negotiations were initiated resulting in a reenergized business relationship and new pricing terms that resulted in a 21% reduction in freight rates.

Problem: This western Canada manufacturer of major components for the oil extraction and refining industry had begun to outsource some of its project manufacturing to an India based supplier to meet the burgeoning demand for its products. While managing an outsourced manufacturer was proving challenging enough, failures by the company’s logistics service providers and runaway logistics costs was hurting both the company’s reputation and its bottom line. LogCentrix was hired to help the company to find a solution to their global freight issues.

Solution: We methodically researched the company’s logistics requirements and performance expectations and then clearly articulated these to the major global logistics providers through a “request for proposal” process. The extensive assessment and selection process yielded a new partnership with a logistics service provider that had global infrastructure and local connections to execute the complicated logistics requirements, and was capable of providing the high touch service, price stability, shipment visibility and value-added reporting that was needed to manage the import program.

Small Package

Problem: This parts distribution operation of an OEM manufacturer had long been using the national postal service to deliver it is parts to dealers, local mobile repair operators and the homes of DIYers. An analysis of the company’s courier delivery requirements, operating processes and shipment methods was conducted to help the company see the gaps in their current service provider arrangement and to understand that better delivery performance could be achieved at a lower cost.

Solution: Through a Request for Proposal managed by LogCentrix, a single national small package delivery provider was selected. The project resulted in a 20% increase in the number of addresses that could be reached “next day”, a 28% cost saving on ground shipments and a 52% saving on air shipments. For an operation that was shipping more than 250,000 packages per year the saving had a dramatic impact on the overall ROI of their parts distribution business.

Network Design & Optimization

Problem: This large industrial concern with plants in the U.S. and Mexico wanted to understand the cost and service impact of establishing a high velocity distribution center in a key market. They also wanted to know whether their direct-to- retailer full truckload distribution program was meeting their cost objectives.

Solution: Through detailed modelling of the client’s real estate, inventory, labor and transportation costs under different growth scenarios, we determined an optimal facility footprint and shipment level distribution strategy. The revised approach resulted in over $1.5 million in savings.

Problem: This large distributor of maintenance, repair and operating supplies to industry operating five distribution centers had a complex inbound freight consolidation program. The program was plagued with highly variable transit times and lacked visibility to in-transit shipments.

Solution: Scenario analysis was completed to assess the impact of eliminating a U.S. cross dock facility. The outcome was a 75% reduction in transit time variability and freight cost savings of 15%.

Warehouse Operations, Layout and Capacity Analysis

LogCentrix was engaged by a manufacturer and distributor of industrial supplies to the construction industry. The task was to assess the company’s current warehouse management practices and develop performance metrics to help improve customer responsiveness, fill rates and productivity. The assessment benchmarked the client’s warehouse operations against appropriate best practices and identified over thirty-five improvement opportunities. Fifteen key performance indicators addressing customer service, order fulfillment, supplier performance, warehouse productivity and inventory management were implemented. The project also supported the company’s move to a new 160,000 ft² warehouse facility including storage configuration, slotting (product location) strategy, material handling equipment requirements, budgeting and supplier negotiations.