Archive for the ‘Transportation’ Category

Profit Point, the leading supply chain optimization software and services company, today announced a partnership with TBB Global Logistics, a leading domestic and international transportation management provider. The two companies have partnered to provide an integrated solution of logistics and supply chain optimization software and services to provide global manufacturers and distributors an integrated supply chain network and distribution plan.

As a logistics industry leader since 1946, TBB Global Logistics has the knowledge and expertise to develop and manage the most complex supply chain strategies for your company. Together Profit Point and TBBGL can deliver a complete solution to provide increased efficiency, lower total costs, superior customer service and a more competitive position in a dynamic global marketplace. TBB Global Logistics is a non-asset based, supply chain management company that relies on superior, web-based technology and relevant expertise to enable clients’ ability to effectively and profitably compete in a global marketplace.

“Large domestic and international clients are pursuing deeper integration of their supply chain strategies into their day–to-day operations,” noted Dr. Alan Kosansky, Profit Point’s CEO. “Partnering with a company like TBB, provides our clients the ability to develop a seamless transportation and distribution strategy and implementation plan.

Profit Point now has access to global transportation data resources and 3PL expertise insight to deliver the entire package: the strategic supply chain plan along with an operational solution covering supply chain distribution, logistics and transportation engagements. Together, the two companies deliver a unified team of dedicated professionals to meet the demands of global manufacturers and distributors by helping customers design and implement an optimal supply chain.

To learn more about Profit Point’s supply chain software and services, call us at (866) 347-1130 or contact us here.

About Profit Point:

Profit Point Inc. was founded in 1995 and is now a global leader in supply chain optimization. The company’s team of supply chain consultants includes industry leaders in the fields infrastructure planning, green operations, supply chain planning, distribution, scheduling, transportation, warehouse improvement and business optimization. Profit Point’s has combined software and service solutions that have been successfully applied across a breadth of industries and by a diverse set of companies, including Dow Chemical, Coca-Cola, Toys “R” Us, Logitech and Toyota.

About TBB Global Logistics:

Founded in Baltimore in 1946, TBB Global Logistics provides complete supply chain management services. TBB provides domestic and international transportation management and supply chain solutions through its Supply Chain Guardian^SM brand. Supply chain support services include sourcing, procurement, customized warehouse logistics, inventory management and reverse logistics. TBB offers web-based supply chain management applications and supply chain consulting. Headquartered in New Freedom, Pennsylvania, TBB Global Logistics also has offices in Maryland, located in Hanover by BWI Airport and sales teams throughout the United States. TBB Global maintains a network of agents in countries around the world. TBB is a third generation, family-owned company.

The following is a guest blog post from Sam Polakoff, President, TBB Global Logistics.

Now sit down and think about it for a moment. Exactly when did your company establish its current distribution network? In all likelihood, the answer is three or more years. Is your business the same as it was three years ago? Probably not. What factors commonly drive change necessitating a shift in supply chain strategy? There are many including, but not limited to, the addition of key customers,  product introductions, changing sources of supply, competitive threats, mergers, acquisitions, natural disasters and shifting demographics. So how do you rationalize using yesterday’s supply chain for today’s business needs? At best, you are getting by with higher costs and lower margins. You may feel as if you are losing the battle to stay competitive in a difficult economy.

To compete effectively in a dynamic business environment, continuous evaluation of the marketplace is a critical success factor. Once knowledge is in-hand, your supply chain must be built in an agile manner allowing for efficient shifts to accommodate expected and unexpected change.

I recently spoke to the owner of a U.S. manufacturing company that dates back to the early 20^th century. He was explaining how he was in the final stages of divesting the company of all its hard assets. They had long ago moved manufacturing offshore. They had evolved into a substantial importer managing a series of company-owned distribution centers. Today, all of the distribution is outsourced and the old company headquarters building is up for sale. The shift to a virtual company is near complete. The executives are now free to work on product innovation and the related sales and marketing. They still compete effectively but with higher margins and more agility. This old line company has adapted and overcome, multiple times, aligning and realigning supply chain process with strategic business objectives and changing marketplace conditions. The results are higher profits, supply chain flexibility and happier customers.

Establishing and using key performance indicators will serve as confirmation of effective supply chain process or as a red flag requiring attention. Aligning supply chain with strategic business objectives and keeping your finger on the pulse of the customer will propel you forward on the road to prosperity.

When you slice up the supply-chain into its different components, one of the highest areas of expense, and an area that many companies struggle to comprehend and manage, is transportation.  Why is it, that for many otherwise sophisticated companies, no one within the organization is held accountable to know what they spend on freight, where they spend it, why they spend it and how they can change it?

A recent transportation survey conducted by Profit Point shows 75% of our survey respondents continue to struggle with the trade-off between adding carriers to reduce costs, and limiting the total number of carriers so they can be effectively managed for safety and service.  Probably the most surprising finding for me was that one out of every four respondents was unable to confirm whether or not their most recent improvement projects in the transportation arena had any impact.  Wow! One quarter of transportation managers can’t measure whether their efforts made a difference.  In this uncertain economic environment where every penny counts, I think we should expect more from ourselves.

Another find – only 30% of respondents had been out in the market with a bid over the previous 12 months.   At a time where shipping volume is picking up and carriers are becoming more aggressive with pricing, it seems we should be very close to the market to make sure we’re paying the right amount for our freight.  With less than a third of shippers out in the market with a bid over the last year, how can we be sure that the price increases being proposed by carriers are reasonable?

Transportation continues to be a significant portion of the total supply chain cost, therefore for many companies, the single most significant area to focus cost reduction attention.  Have we lost our vision?  Is it time for a new pair of glasses?  Our survey seems to suggest it.  If you have been anointed as the Czar of transportation for your company, then you need to be in touch with the market and confident that the changes you implement are having a meaningful impact on the bottom line.

You can download the report by clicking the link below:

Download the
Transportation 2011 Survey Report

With the timing and velocity of an economic recovery uncertain, many companies are looking for new ways to improve profits without risking growth capacity. One key opportunity for gaining competitive cost advantage is transportation spend.

So this year, we conducted a survey transportation decision makers to learn more about their concerns and expectation for 2011. Supply chain professionals from a variety of companies and industries were polled. Here’s what we learned:

• In today’s environment, cost and service still dominate all other considerations
• Despite current economic conditions, 87% of respondents are concerned about rising transportation costs
• 75% of all respondents find it challenging to balance the tradeoff between cutting costs and adding too many carriers
• One in four respondents were not able to measure the impact of their “improvement initiatives”

To read the complete report, including our conclusions, click the link below:

Download the 2011 Transportation Survey

To learn more about Profit Point’s transportation optimization and transportation procurement services, call (866) 347-1130 or contact us here.

I’m a picture guy.  In our kind of work, we have to be able to take a lot of data and make sense out of the process or processes that generated it.  I used to work with a fellow named, Bill, who has a PhD in Operations Research, and is probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life.  Bill is a guy who can look at six or seven big tables of numbers and then say something like, “… and the answer is 7.563.”  He was usually right.  I don’t have that talent to create the linkages among lots of different types of information in my head to come up with a conclusion like that.  That’s why I like pictures.

Recently, one of my colleagues and I were visiting a manufacturing plant to assess their production scheduling process.  The client invited us to visit the plant because they knew they had a problem.  As we followed the scheduler through his day, we began to understand the root causes of the problem.  So how did I choose to communicate what we’d found to the client?  You guessed it; I drew a picture.

When the plant manager first opened the file containing the flowchart of their existing process, she told me she only needed to see that it took me three letter-sized pages to document to the process to know that the process was much too complex and cumbersome to be fixed with a couple of “quick hits.”  Why is it that she knew without studying the details that we needed a full redesign to fix this process?

I think many of us are just built that way.  I know there is a lot of clinical and academic research that shows how we human beings use our sense of sight as a first preference for observing the world, and that there are specific parts of our brains that are able to detect visual patterns or the lack thereof.  However, I don’t think we need to see the results of that research to know why the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” is such an enduring statement.  It rings true with all of us.

That’s why I like a software product called Tableau.  It is marketed as a visual analysis tool and I think it does its job quite well.  Although I don’t claim to be an expert user, I have found it quite useful when I need to understand what’s going on in a large dataset.  Let me illustrate using an example from a recent transportation analysis that we did for one of our clients.

Our client had grown by acquisition and managed its transportation in a very de-centralized manner.  Each of the sites contracted individually with their own set of carriers, using their own set of criteria for selecting and then awarding business to the carriers.  Profit Point was called in to help the client understand the cost-savings opportunities that would result from a more centralized approach to carrier contracting and management.

Our first priority was to find out what was going on at all of the different sites so we developed a database from the client’s freight payment records to do it.  Now, picture this (pun intended).  We now have over 63,000 individual shipment records to analyze and we needed to do it in a way that told a story that we could understand and that we could then communicate to the client.  The first thing we did was look at the spend by plant and by carrier.  The spend by plant was more of a prioritization issue, to understand which of the plants had the highest freight spend, but the spend by carrier became the first part of our story as you can see in the two pictures below.

This second chart was a very powerful image to help the client quickly see that the number of carriers being employed was out of control.  You don’t even need to be able to read the name of the carrier on the Y-axis to know that there are too many carriers in this picture.  Many of these carriers had only a single load all year long, but were still carried in the system.

We also wanted to show the client the significant different in pricing policies across their carrier base.  The following slides show how we used some more of Tableau’s functionality to make our point.

By plotting cost vs. distance for all of the shipments, we were able to see the general correlation of cost with distance that we expected, but we also saw a number of outliers that we wanted to better understand.

We then highlighted a group of very high-cost shipments and kept only those points to see what we might find out.

Using a simple stacked bar chart, it was very apparent that carrier “C-g,” the red bar in the chart at left, was the main player in this group.  Once “C-g” was identified, we were able to demonstrate that their cost was always greater than the average cost for shipments with distances greater than 200 miles and by as much as 50-66% for shipments with distances greater than 1000 miles.

Again, these pictures allowed us to find one of the smoking guns inside this mass of data.  Suffice it to say that we found many other opportunities through similar visual analysis.

Because of these pictures, and others like them, it was an easy sell.  Using a tool that makes it easy to use the built-in “intelligence of our eyeballs,” we were able to develop a convincing call to action for our client, who went out to the market with a targeted freight bid and reduced their transportation spend dramatically.

As technology continues to penetrate more and more aspects of business and our everyday lives, it makes more and more data available for us to turn into useful information.  But it’s only useful information when we can put it into a form that we understand and can communicate it to others.  That’s why I’m a picture guy.

To learn more about Profit Point’s transportation services, call (866) 347-1130 or contact us here.

“Going Green” is becoming a higher priority for companies large and small, as regulatory bodies and consumers around the world push for more readily-available information on corporate carbon footprints and companies’ plans to control / reduce their carbon emissions.  But how do you do this most cost-effectively?  Optimization is a tool that can lead to better “green” decision-making.

First, let’s review of the types of decisions that companies are making today.  Here are some real world examples from recent press reports…

Dole Food Company,  the world’s largest producer of fruits and vegetables, has committed to make its banana and pineapple business in Costa Rica carbon neutral over the next decade.  Dole social responsibility officials Sylvain Cuperlier and Rudy Amador recently highlighted their priorities in achieving this in an interview :

• measurement of current carbon footprint and activities, such as the use of fertilizers,
• research into and collaboration on mitigation and sequestration projects, and
• improved  operations, including increased use of rail transportation on land and more energy-efficient refrigerated containers for maritime shipments.

Tyco Waterworks, a worldwide supplier of water system equipment based in the UK, has documented its consolidation of multiple manufacturing plants into a single Manufacturing Centre of Excellence for meter boxes, plastic injection molding and gunmetal products in Bridgend, South Wales.  Having all its manufacturing under one roof results in a reduction in the company’s overall energy consumption and transport, with a resulting positive impact on its carbon footprint (as well as giving operational efficiency benefits.)

Xerox Corporation, which provides document services and equipment around the world, maintains a fleet of 5,000 vehicles used by its technicians in the United States as they respond to customer requests for service.   Tony Rossi, Xerox’s manager of programs and operational support, said in an interview that his programs, which have reduced fuel consumption over the last several years by 10%, and have a goal of a 25% reduction, can be grouped into four categories:

• pairing each driver with the best-sized vehicle for his / her needs,
• improving the fleet’s fuel efficiency as vehicles are replaced,
• tracking driver routes and distances traveled on a daily basis, and
• using GPS systems to match available technicians against pending requests as they are dispatched during the day.

The common thread?  These companies have made progress towards their cost and carbon goals by

• understanding their current situation, and what their options include,
• implementing more efficient operations over their existing supply chain (thus generally using less energy and lowering their footprint), and
• making the most effective capital additions to their supply chain systems when justified.

Optimization techniques can allow you to identify the best solutions that are possible in improving efficiency and implementing capital projects.  Thus you can make the best choices for meeting your goals from the options that you have at hand.

In making decisions for a manufacturing-oriented supply chain like the one described for Tyco Waterworks above, a network design tool like Profit Network can help you evaluate the benefits of:

• keeping or consolidating existing facilities, as well as,
• opening potential manufacturing sites, taking into account
• capital costs,
• shutdown charges,
• manufacturing rates and costs,
• freight costs, and
• and a host of other costs and constraints on operations.

Profit Network uses a combination of linear and mixed integer programming and related optimization techniques to guarantee that you evaluate a range of solutions and identify those that are best for your particular needs.  Potential decisions that can be evaluated include both operational changes and choices among proposed capital projects that will lead to greater efficiency.

Xerox and Dole have scheduling problems that can be solved by both optimization and heuristic means.  The Xerox technician dispatching problem is a variation on the mathematically well-studied Assignment Problem, which can be solved using “greedy” algorithms (which pick off the “low hanging fruit” but are not guaranteed to give the absolute best solution) or more comprehensive methods that can give the best solution, at perhaps a longer solve time.  Transportation scheduling problems again can be solved through these methods. Using the technology of the 21st century will be critical for businesses to meet their “green” objectives.  Optimization technology is one of these new technologies that will help you reach these goals.

This article was written by Dr. Gene Ramsay, Profit Point’s Infrastructure Planning Practice Leader. To learn more about Profit Point’s Supply Chain Sustainability services, please call (866) 347-1130 or contact us here.

Image courtesy of Gavin Schaefer.

Many carriers went out of business in 2008 and 2009. The stronger ones survived and have typically sustained their business by establishing high levels of asset utilization. This has been achieved by limiting empty miles and finding complementary loads to ensure trucks are being used in both directions. This creates a wonderful opportunity for shippers: By identifying those carriers who can offer you the lowest rates because your loads help them balance out their network, you can find significant cost saving opportunities when purchasing transportation.

Learn about the essential steps that you can take today to cut costs and gain advantage in your carrier negotiations. Click the link below to access our new white paper:

Profit Point’s supply chain consultants have seen decades of economic boom and bust. Learn about the essential steps that you can take today to cut costs in the near term and prepare for future economic scenarios. Click the link below to access our new white paper:

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued final guidance for the $1.5 billion in surface transportation grants it will award by next February, and among the top selection criteria will be environmental sustainability, innovation, and partnerships. DOT has included sustainability – improved energy efficiency, lower greenhouse gases, and/or less dependence on foreign oil – as one of five criteria it will consider in evaluating a proposed project’s long-term beneficial outcomes for a metropolitan area, a region, or the country. Long-term outcomes, along with a project’s impact on job creation and near-term economic stimulus, will be DOT’s primary criteria for awarding grants.

DOT will also be considering two secondary criteria – innovation and partnerships. DOT is soliciting projects that use innovative technologies to achieve long-term outcomes or significantly enhance the operational performance of transportation systems, and projects that involve partnerships with non-Federal entities and the use of non-Federal funds. Priority will be given to projects for which a grant will help complete an overall financing package.

Recent estimates from DOT suggest that up to $50 Billion in grant requests may be submitted, making this a highly competitive process. It will be essential for an applicant to thoroughly meet the primary guidelines and to score well on secondary guidelines to win tiebreakers. If your project doesn’t yet adequately address the three considerations of innovation, sustainability and partnership, Profit Point may be able to improve your chances of success:

Sustainability
Profit Point provides mathematics-based solutions that optimize the use of resources for maximal efficiency. Frequently this optimization results in reduced transportation mileage which minimizes greenhouse gas emissions as well as fuel consumption. It might also involve minimizing water use, minimizing output of toxic pollutants or maximizing production of beneficial byproducts.

Some examples include:

• Scheduling ship berths at ports to minimize ship idle time in a harbor
• Scheduling port (or canal) maritime traffic
• Optimizing a port drayage schedule to minimize delays and overland carrier idle times
• Optimizing local school bus or public transit system routes to minimize greenhouse gas emissions while providing optimal service
• Routing your deliveries or pickups using the fewest miles traveled
• Providing the algorithm to trigger variable speed limits on traffic leading to a congested area such as a city center or bridge
• Optimizing deliveries for the elderly, such as “Meal on Wheels,” to minimize vehicle costs and emissions
• Conducting infrastructure studies to evaluate the full impact of a project, such as a port expansion with intermodal considerations

If you need to address the sustainability criterion in DOT’s guidance or if you can benefit from including an optimization study as part of your application, we may be able to help you. Profit Point was recently awarded the Supply & Demand Chain Executive Green Supply Chain Award for its Green Network product. Profit Green Network can be used along with our Profit Vehicle Planner and Router Applications to create better plans and improve sustainability.

Innovation
While innovation is not a primary criterion for selection, it will be used to rank similar projects in order to break a tie. Adding leading edge technology such as mathematics-based optimization to your grant application provides one way of strengthening its innovative appeal.

Optimization is one of the hottest topics in industry today because it not only ensures operations are maximizing their current objectives, but also allows ‘what if’ modeling for future scenarios. “What if modeling” helps ensure continued achievement of your objectives, no matter what set of circumstances may occur.

Partnerships
After DOT considers primary criteria, priority will be given to innovative projects and those that involve State and local governments or private or nonprofit entities.

While there are certainly many partners available, adding a private, small business partner such as Profit Point, Inc. to the application may strengthen its overall appeal. Building on Profit Point’s extensive sustainable logistics and mathematical optimization experience can help make your project application unique.

Presenting the Proposal
Should you need assistance preparing your application or prefer advice from a transportation expert, you may wish to work with an experienced consultant on surface transportation issues. Phillips Strategic Services, a Northern Virginia firm with strong ties to both industry and government, is one firm available to assist you. Phillips Strategic Services experience includes:

• Policy leadership at the Federal Highway Administration;
• Policy development and lobbying for American Trucking Associations;
• Senior staff to a Senate Committee handling surface transportation issues; and
• Various government affairs, marketing, and strategic planning positions with Union Pacific Railroad, Conrail and CSX

In conclusion, nearly any type of surface transportation project is eligible for funding under the discretionary program, which was authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. DOT has named the program “Grants for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery” or TIGER Discretionary Grants, and applications are due by September 15, 2009 with all grants to be awarded by February 17, 2010.

If you’d like to improve your chances of success by strengthening the sustainability and innovative appeal, or if you need a partner to help you present your application most effectively, please contact us:

Profit Point, Inc.
No. Brookfield, MA
Cindy Engers: (925) 736-6800, cengers@profitpt.com
Richard Guy: (435) 487-9141, rguy@profitpt.com

Phillips Strategic Services Ltd.
Alexandria, VA
Mary Phillips: (703) 360-3560, mphillips@phillipsstrategicservices.com

Profit Point’s transportation procurement optimization service reduces outsourcing costs by quickly analyzing multiple carrier bids and provides insightful data for decision makers

Profit Point, a leading Supply Chain Optimization company, today announced the introduction of Transportation Procurement, an optimization service that will cut costs for manufacturers and distributors that outsource some or all of their shipping to third-party carriers. The service provides transportation analysts and procurement managers unsurpassed ability to quickly analyze carrier bids and evaluate the best combination of carrier discounts, enabling them to negotiate rates to ship at the lowest total cost.

“Our clients are looking for new ways to reduce costs and gain productivity in every aspect of their business.” said Alan Kosansky, Profit Point’s President. “With the constant fluctuations in the transportation market, this service enables clients to manage their core carrier base and make effective decisions quickly, negotiating with carriers from a position of strength.”

The company’s optimization service and technology provide the analytical horsepower to the transportation or procurement professional to quickly evaluate different mixes of carriers and lane assignments, making trade-offs among both quantitative and qualitative business goals. The service’s richness and flexibility enables clients to dictate constraints to enforce site-specific, regional or global limits on the number and types of carriers that are included in the awarded lanes.

“We have deployed carrier bid optimization software to our clients in the past; however we have found that many of our clients prefer to leverage our deep analytical expertise. By partnering the client’s negotiating team with the analytical insights we provide them, they are able to reach the best possible outcomes in their negotiations with carriers,” said Kosansky. “And when our clients are ready to bring the analysis in house, we readily provide our Profit Procurement for Transportation software.”

Most large manufacturers have hundreds of carriers and thousands of lane options available to ship products from their manufacturing and distribution centers to their customers. The firm’s procurement optimization service addresses all inbound and outbound transportation routes, including rail, truck (bulk, packaged, and LTL), and marine bids, and simplifies the selection process while lowering the overall transportation costs.

To learn more about Profit Point’s transportation procurement optimization services, call us at (866) 347-1130 or visit www.profitpt.com.

About Profit Point:
Profit Point Inc. was founded in 1995 and is now a global leader in supply chain optimization. The company’s team of supply chain consultants includes industry leaders in the fields infrastructure planning, green operations, supply chain planning, distribution, scheduling, transportation, warehouse improvement and business optimization. Profit Point has combined software and service solutions that have been successfully applied across a breadth of industries and by a diverse set of companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, General Electric, Logitech, Rohm and Haas and Toyota.

Profit Point’s territory planning and vehicle routing applications now tailored to meet the needs of both small and large companies.

Profit Point, a leading supply chain optimization company, today announced the introduction of Profit Vehicle Planner (PVP) and Profit Vehicle Router (PVR). PVP, a sales and distribution application designed to service large, nationwide operations, includes territory and cycle planning tools, as well as vehicle routing functions. PVR is designed for businesses that need to optimize their vehicle routing, but do not need the territory and cycle planning features that are included in PVP.

“Many people don’t realize that recent advancements in supply chain technology now allow low cost integration of sophisticated mapping tools to make daily planning activities fast and easy,” noted Jim Piermarini, Profit Point’s Chief Technology Officer. “Rising fuel prices have put pressure on every distributor. By combining advanced optimization algorithms with today’s mapping tools, our clients are able to make significant cost reductions while improving customer service levels.”

Profit Point’s PVR software is a streamlined route optimization tool that enables complete distribution analysis by daily routes. PVP includes all of the features of PVR and adds a number of territory planning functions to meet the needs of regional, national and international distributors. Both products are designed to reduce equipment and fuel costs, overtime pay and increase the volume of product delivered per driver.

“Delivery costs represent a significant percentage of our overall distribution expenses,” said Ken Burkey, Logistics Manager of DS Waters. DS Waters is the U.S. leader in home and office water delivery, including 26 manufacturing facilities which delivers to millions of homes, offices, retailers across the country. “Profit Point’s software and optimization expertise has enabled our company to easily reengineer our distribution plan to cuts costs and improve customer service.”

Learn more about Profit Vehicle Planner and Profit Vehicle Router.

Speed is a common measure for many of today’s supply chains. We all want to know how quickly we can respond to the customer’s request. Speed of response is one of the main drivers behind the current thinking on the Demand Driven Supply Network (DDSN) and many other recent supply chain innovations. One important thing about “speed” is that it comes in at least two flavors, “fast” and “slow”. Many of today’s best supply chains use both. A key supply chain opportunity is to know when to use which speed for transportation to meet customer service targets at the lowest total cost.

You might ask yourself, “Why, if my supply chain is supposed to be quick to respond to customer requests, would I want to include any speed other than “fast?” One “fast” answer is cost. We see this cost almost every day in our personal lives as well as our professional lives. When we purchase something off the internet, we always have the choice of “standard shipping” for a certain price (sometimes free) for delivery in a few days, or “premium shipping” that can have the package on our doorstep the next morning. However, this next-day service almost always costs us more. Likewise, when a supply chain professional chooses rail for his/her long-distance shipments the costs are substantially lower than they would have been for truck, but at the cost of a longer transit time.

Because of this cost differential, many of today’s supply chains use multiple modes (fast and slow) of transportation. The slower mode of transportation is usually applied to lower cost materials that have a longer shelf life and are consumed in a predictable pattern. That is, their demand can be reasonably accurately forecasted. However, in practice there are often significant numbers of shipments of this same material that are made using faster, more expensive modes of transportation. Why is this, and how can we minimize it in our supply chains?

A major factor contributing to the freight premium seen in these types of lanes is the fact that most supply chains are planned with “steady state” in mind, using average demands, average transit times and average supply capacities. Steady state looks great on paper, but rarely happens for prolonged periods in the real world. Thus, we find that natural variation in customer demand, transit time or manufacturing capacity can create low inventory situations that require expedited shipments to avoid a stock-out. In addition, unplanned surges in demand, transportation interruptions (like port congestion, strikes or storms) and temporary shortfalls of supply perturb the system and push us to expedite shipments that are supposed to move by a cheaper mode of transportation.

Reducing the premium freight caused by the natural variation in demand, transit time and supply should happen at the supply chain design stage. Using the right blend of statistics, modeling and experience will result in a much more robust supply chain that balances the additional cost of inventory, and logistics assets against the high cost of premium freight. Dealing with the issue of large, unanticipated perturbations to the supply, demand and transit times is another kettle of fish.

This issue may best be explored by using an example. Profit Point was retained by a large specialty materials manufacturer to help solve this precise problem. The specialty materials company manufactured a number of key raw materials at a large, integrated site on the US Gulf Coast. From there, they were shipped to nine company locations around the US and Canada as well as to a number of external customers. Although there were multiple products manufactured at the site, the level of integration among the products was such that an upset in one part of the process could impact the supply of a number of these raw materials. The preferred mode of transportation for all of the material was by rail in tank cars. However, each year the company was spending millions of dollars in premium freight to move the materials by tank truck to the very same sites. The root causes for the premium freight were:

1. The manufacturing site was required to operate very close to its instantaneous maximum capacity to meet demand. Thus, any small interruptions in supply had large ripple effects through the system because “catch-up capacity” was almost non-existent to rebuild inventory. (This is why you need significantly more inventory when you operate so close to capacity, but that’s the subject of a future article. )

2. Rail transit times were extremely variable, particularly to sites in the Far West.

Because neither of these problems would be solved in the foreseeable future, we needed to develop a customized solution that would minimize their premium freight costs while continuing to deal with the ongoing perturbations in the supply chain. In other words, how could we manage the transition from all rail shipments to partial or full truck shipments and back to rail at the minimum cost while meeting customer service requirements?

Using a customized heuristic algorithm, Profit Point developed a finite capacity scheduling application that created a product/customer-site specific schedule of tank cars and tank trucks that maintained minimum safety stocks at the nine company site and met customer service goals for the external customers while minimizing the total freight spend. With this new tool, the manufacturer cut the premium freight cost dramatically and improved overall customer service.

With the tool, the scheduler could create much better schedules in a fraction of the time required with the spreadsheet approach she had been using. (Those of us who have worked on the plant floor remember that “optimum” can be loosely defined as “the first schedule that works,” when you’re up to your eyeballs in alligators with people calling to find out when they’re going to receive their next shipment. The new scheduling algorithm was able to look at hundreds of schedules that would work and choose the best one.) She was able to quickly orchestrate the moves of certain lanes into trucks and then back into rail cars as conditioned changed either on the supply side or on the transit-time/demand side of the process.

If you’d like to find out more about managing multiple transportation modes in common lanes in your supply chain, please call us at (866) 347-1130, or send us an e-mail using the following link: http://www.profitpt.com/contact/.

Machinery Link is “Re-writing the Rules” about owning farm equipment. Today, machinery operating and ownership expenses account for nearly 40 percent of a producer’s total annual production costs. And the cost of owning agricultural equipment increases each year.

The MachineryLink Innovation Ag Equipment Program provides producers with popular name-brand combines. MachineryLink’s fleet of machines allows them to provide their customers with the size, model, and equipment features that best fit their farming operation.

MachineryLink manages transportation, scheduled delivery, maintenance, and parts, supported by professional operations, transportation, logistics, and field service teams. Combines move efficiently and dependably across the country between producers as harvest seasons progress.

Profit Point supports this process with a unique optimization approach for the logistics and delivery of the combines. The solution integrates world-class optimization, with state-of-the-art visualization and mapping software, allowing MachineryLink to rebalance their combine to customer assignments during the season. The system accommodates new customers and weather related delays, both issues that had upset their schedules in the past. Jim Bramlett, VP of Operations says: “This system is great; it allows us to increase our asset utilization, while maintaining excellent customer service.” Machinery Link is helping farmers lower their costs, and Profit Point is pleased to help them do it.

SuperShuttle introduces “Auto Routing” for Quicker Pick Up and Delivery to most of the nation’s largest Airports

Profit Point, MapInfo and SuperShuttle team up to provide the ultimate in Passenger Customer Service

PHOENIX – (December 18, 2007) – SuperShuttle just made getting to the airport and home easier with the introduction of “Auto Routing” a unique system for the delivery of real live people to and from most of the nation’s leading airports. Auto Routing is the brain child of Profit Point, Pitney Bowes MapInfo and SuperShuttle coming together to create a state-of-the-art pick up and delivery system for people that allows for the most efficient routing of SuperShuttle customers yet.

Profit Point, Pitney Bowes MapInfo and SuperShuttle created this programming capability which integrated their individual systems in to the centralized dispatch capabilities at SuperShuttle to provide passengers with a quicker and less complex pick up system for SuperShuttle customers nationwide. “Auto Routing” will reduce the pick up times, less time spent on the shared-ride vans for customers and quicker turn around at the airports overall.

“This has been a true team effort,” said Mike Hogan, Chief Technology Officer for SuperShuttle International. “The functionality of ‘Auto Routing’ is different than the typical delivery optimization of packages since we’re essentially delivering people. Packages don’t mind sitting in the delivery truck and going out of their way a bit. People, on the other hand, don’t like to be on the van too long, go to far out of their way, or backtrack to the airport. This new system actually delivers a whole new ‘on-time’ delivery system for our customers.”

Basically, “Auto Routing” can route each drivers entire day’s work in less than a minute whereas it would take a dispatcher anywhere from four to eight hours to accomplish the same.

Profit Point, Inc.
Profit Point is about the “Science of Better,” specializing in the improvement of a broad range of complex business processes in several industries. Profit Point’s solutions provide immediate benefits using cost-effective technology improvements with Targeted Software and focused consulting services. Please go to www.profitpt.com for more information.

SuperShuttle International, based in Phoenix, AZ is a division of Veolia Transportation On Demand and a subsidiary of Veolia Environment (Euronext: VIE, NYSE: VE). SuperShuttle serves 27 airports, carrying more than eight million passengers a year. Airports served by SuperShuttle include some of the largest in the country including Los Angeles, New York, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Washington, D.C. and Miami. Please go to www.supershuttle.com for more information.

Veolia Transportation, Inc.
Veolia Transportation is the leading provider of passenger ground transportation services on the North American continent, operating bus, rail, taxi, shuttle and para-transit systems in over 120 locations in the US and Canada. Veolia Transportation entered the North American market in 2001 and has quickly expanded to a national presence, with over 16,000 employees and annual revenues approaching $1 billion.

To learn more about how Profit Point can help improve your transportation and routing, contact us here:

(866) 347-1130 or
(435) 487-9141

Send us an Email

Profit Vehicle Router (PVR) is a sales and distribution territory planning application as well as an operational routing application. The software helps distributors save money by cutting the time needed to develop sales/distribution territories and schedules, as well as reducing delivery miles and the number of delivery vehicles and drivers needed. PVR helps you plan optimal delivery or sales route territories, cycle-day territories (what days each site will receive deliveries), and daily routes from a distribution center or office, thereby improving customer service, employee productivity and ultimately increasing profits.

PVR Assigns Your Customers to Efficient Route Territories
Go from chaos to organized in minutes. Create new territory assignments:

• As customers are added or deleted
• Or as often as you desire.

Suitable for both operational and planning purposes, streamlines your route-planning process, using computer-aided technology to:

• Reduce the staff time required to determine the optimal territories and routes,
• Reduce the number of delivery miles and delivery time, and
• Decrease the number of delivery vehicles and drivers you need.

PVR combines familiar tools such as Microsoft Access, Excel, and MapPoint with advanced proprietary routing algorithms to ensure high-quality solutions.

To learn more about how Profit Point can help improve your vehicle routing and transportation systems, contact us here:

(866) 347-1130 or
(435) 487-9141

Send us an Email