SUMMARY
Our client, a food packaging company, was facing intense supply chain pressures for a time-critical product. IL2000 stepped in to reduce freight costs and improve stability with creative shipping lane alternatives. Building on that success, we untangled their shipping complexities with a new distribution center and the company’s first taste of complete, real-time supply chain business intelligence. Then we future-proofed their supply chain — leveraging decades of expertise in every cog and gear of distribution science to help our client make smarter, faster, more strategic supply chain decisions. The result: $40,000 in supply chain savings per year, vastly improved on-time delivery performance, and new levels of freight resilience.
COMPANY PROFILE
Our client is a food packaging company that develops and manufactures plastic materials used for shipping specialty snack foods. Many of the company's packaging solutions are flexible laminates specifically designed for highly perishable food products. As well as having considerable shelf appeal, these packaging materials are durable, versatile, and create a reliable airproof seal. All of these benefits, however, come with one crucial caveat. The product must arrive at the food production facility on time, in perfect condition.
A strong supply chain is therefore as integral to our client’s success as its high-quality raw materials and cutting-edge manufacturing approach.
PAIN POINTS
- Customers relied on our client to provide packaging materials as just-in-time (JIT) shipments. Even a small delivery delay could jeopardize a food manufacturer’s whole production batch. Our client needed to deliver rock-solid reliability for must-arrive delivery dates. That challenge spilled into carrier costs. Our client was spending a fortune on carriers that could guarantee that level of reliability.
- Tight delivery timeframes and a volatile carrier environment imposed considerable pressure on the company to maintain constant, real-time visibility over its freight operation. Our client required technically demanding reports built from a large and complex dataset with a daily turnaround. Exacerbating the data challenges, our client struggled to leverage data to make critical supply chain decisions. Seasoned supply chain experts weren’t sitting at the table to weigh in on critical supply chain decisions. No analytics tool or 3PL they’d hitherto worked with could rise to these BI and analytical challenges.
- Our client was shipping materials large distances across the US, and it was difficult for the company to offer the expected level of delivery reliability to all customer locations cost-effectively and sustainably. The tyranny of distance was placing pressure on the company's entire supply chain.
CHALLENGE
The client’s challenge was also one of its most important selling points. It made a product that could greatly prolong the life of a perishable food product if it was available at precisely the right point in a customer's production cycle. The client's challenge was a question. How do you build a truly bulletproof supply chain?
SOLUTION
Shipment costs and reliability balanced
Our customer had historically relied on one LTL carrier for a key shipping lane on the route to Hawaii. Our client's freight outlay for this one lane was exorbitant, and the ocean carrier frequently reported the goods arrived damaged. However, given the limited options available, the company considered this arrangement a necessary downside of shipping its product out to a distant customer.
IL2000 switched that segment from LTL to dedicated truckload; instantly, our client's losses from mishandled shipments were drastically reduced. Within a short timeframe, the company observed greatly improved on-time performance and significantly reduced overall shipping costs.
Supply chain responsiveness accelerated
IL2000 developed a suite of customized reporting tools to help our client gain complete and accurate real-time visibility over its whole distribution network. Our power BI dashboard equipped the company with JIT status updates that refreshed every two hours. Logistics specialists augmented that data with daily analysis of shipment irregularities. Completing that surveillance picture, company logistics operators received a report detailing the status of each active shipment every morning. If the report indicated delays, someone knew about it and was working on it — day or night. Our proactive stance produced a result no previous 3PL or BI product could achieve.
New distribution center operationalized
Our client routinely fulfilled extremely time-sensitive shipments over long distances across the continental United States. As supply chains nationwide became increasingly volatile, our client was forced to contend with a greater frequency of freight delays and burgeoning costs.
IL2000 worked with the company to establish a new distribution center a short distance from one of its largest customers. The center proved a game-changer for our client, who was able to offer a flat rate for deliveries with guaranteed same-day delivery, down to the hour. With strategically placed distribution centers supporting its operations, the company was better placed to meet customer expectations while pursuing new growth opportunities.
RESULTS
- 94% JIT performance & 99.8% truckload OTP
- Significant reduction in freight damage
- Improved distribution infrastructure reinforcing a key client relationship
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