Transportation Optimization

Transportation costs incurred across all modes frequently rank very high as a P&L expense and often highest in the entire supply chain budget. There are pressures from the marketplace to meet very demanding customer delivery expectations at very competitive costs. In developing our approach to assisting clients with transportation challenges we determined that transportation excellence is dependent on getting the right solutions implemented. 
 

We look at Transportation Optimization four-ways in order to be more efficient:

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• Assessment of in-house operations: staffing – planning, people skills, expense and budgeting, carrier management from collaboration improvements to pricing/bidding tactics, use of company fleet if applicable and overall determination of needed improvements and overall performance of department.
   

• Specific freight process improvement initiatives may be: 

  • LTL shipment aggregation

  • Opportunity for partial TLs and heavy LTL

  • Consolidations - stop-off and pick up routing

  • Combine OB with Inbound opportunities, minimize empty trailers – planning solution should make this easier to accomplish

  • Continuous move routing

  • Dedicated capacity – dedicated carriage for high service requirements or specialized delivery customers

  • Co-loading with shippers located nearby or in-route

  • Cross-docking of TL orders; merge in transit
     

• Comparison of in-house (do-it-yourself) vs. outsourcing: to a transportation management 3PL, cost and service benefits, contractual requirements, implementation process, contract terms and conditions – which is the right fit?
   

• Benefits and impact of new transportation systems: for in-house or outsourced operational models to help manage transportation service and costs, get good visibility on shipments with customer accessibility, to manage carrier electronic connections – shipment tracking -pricing or shopping and capacity – carrier payments, data required via integration or connection to your ERP, and for determining opportunities for shipment consolidations and optimization.  See Section “Systems Section” for Software Selection & Procurement.