Dance of the Forklifts

Warehouse management is a critical component of supply chain efficiency.

A warehouse can contain a lot of things. Waste and inefficiency shouldn’t be among them.

Proper warehouse management is a key factor in streamlining your supply chain. From dock management, receiving and putaway through picking, packaging and shipping, every operation offers opportunities to move your logistics to best-in-class status.

Efficiency begets more efficiency. Slotting items carefully, making fast movers more accessible, saves time and labor when moving pallets out. Working to a system allows your operations to function with the choreographed precision of a dance – and the beauty of this dance is the impact on your bottom line.

Instead of individual order picking, using a Warehouse Management System (WMS) allows a combination of wave, zone and batch picking, saving 45 to 50 percent of total warehouse labor and cutting this most time-consuming aspect of warehouse operations down to size.

Ideally, your WMS coordinates with your TMS (Transportation Management System), so goods move out optimally on the back end. Avoid congestion and bottlenecks, improve labor management while cutting overtime, and you can save substantial sums of money, while simultaneously improving customer satisfaction.

Are your warehouse operations costing you money through outdated practices or lack of transparency? Let us show you how you can move your products more efficiently, even when they’re standing still.

Kirk Shearer
President
TOTALogistix
www.totalogistix.com http://www.totalogistix.com/
1-800-989-0054 x 103 

Greatest Hits

The Year in Review –

This time of year, it’s traditional to take a look back over the last 12 months. So here for your perusal, we present links to some of our periodic email messages that readers found most useful or interesting during 2011. Click on the link under each synopsis to read the whole article; you can access all of these email messages at http://blog.totalogistix.com/ and http://otb.totalogistix.com/

Scale Model: A warehouse scalability study can lead to substantial gains in saving and efficiency. See how you can move your products more efficiently, even when they’re standing still.
http://otb.totalogistix.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

What You Don’t Know: Savvy managers are realizing that without a plan to help navigate the logistics labyrinth, they may be trying to compete using a horse and buggy approach in a digital-age world.
http://blog.totalogistix.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Give Your Supply Chain a Little TLC: Performing a Total Landed Cost analysis, factoring in all the costs associated with getting products to their final destination, can give you a key competitive advantage. Does your supply chain need a little TLC?
http://blog.totalogistix.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

Fuhgeddaboutit: With millions of possible combinations rates and charges for a single shipment, consistently making the right choice can be maddeningly difficult. A dynamic routing system can help you find the optimum shipping solution for each package.
http://blog.totalogistix.com/2011_03_01_archive.html

Dialing for Diesels: A trucking capacity squeeze can make it hard to find a carrier to take your load, with any reasonable schedule and rate. Web-based technology allows shippers to electronically post their requirements to select carriers and efficiently match capacity to their needs.
http://blog.totalogistix.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

Cubism: Trucking is not known as a creative business, but carriers get positively artistic when it comes to creating ways to boost revenue and make margins on a given shipment. Case in point: the Cubic Capacity Rule.
http://blog.totalogistix.com/2011_07_01_archive.html

The View from the Top: Supply chain visibility is useful only to the extent C-level executives can act upon it. When costs and savings for a given channel or program can be clearly identified and quantified, management is empowered to take the next step, and act upon the insights generated.
http://blog.totalogistix.com/2011_03_01_archive.html

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and best wishes for a prosperous New Year.

Kirk Shearer
President
TOTALogistix
www.totalogistix.com
1-800-989-0054 x103

Tradition Meets Innovation

Leading floor-covering manufacturer has logistics ‘covered.’

Colonial Mills has a proud heritage. Located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, near the birthplace of the American textile industry, the company is proud to put the “made in USA” label on each of the fine braided rugs they produce.

With domestic manufacturing and an uncompromising devotion to quality, Colonial Mills, Inc. (CMI) has to run a lean, efficient operation in order to stay competitive. CMI offers their customers, including major “big box” retail chains, a vast array of rug choices, in styles from traditional to modern.

As an added incentive, they can deliver orders to their retail partners or their B to C customers in just a matter of days. To ensure the delivery is as efficient as the production, CMI works with TOTALogistix to minimize shipment costs and automate processes. This strong partnership was recently reinforced, when CMI authorized an agreement to keep the relationship going for almost a decade.

CMI takes advantage of TOTALogistix’s cutting edge information technology and clout in the logistics world to gain a competitive advantage, helping them keep their American-made products “underfoot” in thousands of American homes.

“We value our relationship with TOTALogistix. They have helped us to lower our transportation expenses and deciphered the arcane world of parcel carrier rules and charges. That is why we re-signed with them for a third term”, said Don Scarlata, Colonial Mills CEO.

Kirk Shearer
President
TOTALogistix
www.totalogistix.com

800-989-0054 x103

A Tale of Two Tech Firms -

A pair of leading-edge innovators choose to work with a third.

A brief article in TWICE: This Week In Consumer Electronics caught our eye this week. As reported in TWICE, Hitachi America has introduced three new high-definition LCD projectors, priced from $2,695 to $3,495.

Each offers advanced networking capability, HDMI inputs, and upgraded connectivity and performance features. And each model, the article points out, takes advantage of advanced RoomView software from Crestron, allowing control of multiple projectors from a single PC, and providing instant remote technical support.

So what do Hitachi and Crestron have in common? Two things: leading edge technology, and a third party logistics partner that is a leader in their own field – TOTALogistix. Both these high-tech innovators chose us to ensure their components and finished goods move through the supply chain with the same care and precision they bring to creating their products.

At TOTALogistix, we’ve embraced technology, developing advanced proprietary software systems to speed information as well as freight. We can give you visibility into your supply chain never before possible, with measurable and actionable metrics that put you in control.

Don’t just move product from Point A to Point B. Maybe you need to move Point B.

Kirk Shearer

President

TOTALogistix

www.totalogistix.com

800-989-0054 x103

20 Years and Counting

20 Years and Counting –

Looking back (momentarily) over 20 years as an industry innovator.

At the bottom of this message is a little seal, marking the 20 year anniversary of TOTALogistix. Twenty years ago, operating a smallish freight brokerage business, we realized our customers needed more than just putting loads and trucks together. This was the dawn of the third party logistics field, and we helped originate and define it.

We’ve seen sweeping change since we started. Our industry, and business as a whole, has been transformed, most notably by the globalization of supply chains, and the explosion of information technology. Savvy managers have come to realize the vital importance of logistics, that the future battle for market supremacy will not be between enterprises, it will be between supply chains.

TOTALogistix grew and evolved to meet and anticipate our clients’ needs. We brought in key players from all facets of the logistics and supply chain world to create the best internal talent pool. We developed innovative proprietary software systems to speed information as well as freight, and give top executives actionable data and the ability to run “what if” scenarios.

Much of what we do today was unimagined when we started out, but one thing that has never changed is our emphasis on service. The value of our service in the eyes of our clients is what’s allowed TOTALogistix to succeed and grow for the past 20 years. We thank you for your support, and look forward to helping you meet the logistics challenges of the next 20 years, whatever shape they take.

Kirk Shearer

President

TOTALogistix

http://www.totalogistix.com/

800-989-0054 x103

Scale Model -

Warehouse scalability study leads to efficiency, cost savings.


Not all freight movements are over the road. To achieve best-in-class logistics status, you need to look at every aspect of your supply chain. How your products move hundreds of feet across your warehouse can be just as critical to increasing efficiency as how they move hundreds of miles on a truck.

TOTALogistix recently completed a warehouse scalability study for a client in the northeast U.S. This major contract manufacturer has been growing exponentially, and had seen warehousing costs go up even faster than growth. A team led by John Mead, director of national accounts, and Mani Gokarnesan, director of supply chain solutions, undertook a top-to-bottom review of the client’s warehousing operations.

Focusing on scalability and efficiency, they analyzed the process flow throughout the warehouse and production floor, mapping the movement of products through receiving, put-away, pre-weigh, packaging, staging and shipping. They identified which product lines could be efficiently dealt with in-house, and which were more productively outsourced.

By streamlining the flow, identifying and alleviating peaks and valleys in the production cycle, implementing a Master Production Schedule (MPS) and a Warehouse Management System (WMS), TOTALogistix was able to increase productivity of the facilities by 60-70 percent, and cut costs literally in half.

Are your warehouse operations costing you money through outdated practices or lack of transparency? Let us show you how you can move your products more efficiently, even when they’re standing still.

Kirk Shearer
President
TOTALogistix
http://www.totalogistix.com/
800-989-0054 x120

Hedging Your 'Fuel-ish' Bets

Hedging Your ‘Fuel-ish’ Bets.


Private fuel surcharge helps protect clients against oil price volatility.

When planning for logistics expenses, fuel price surcharges are the wildcard in the deck. All carriers impose these overrides on an index of fuel prices, the national U.S. Energy Information Administration (E.I.A.) Weekly Retail On-Highway Diesel Prices or a regional index, tacking on a percentage to your freight bill.

The carriers publish the fuel surcharge schedules to protect themselves from price volatility in fuel, particularly diesel. This of course translates to increased costs for you, their customer. Surcharges represent a smaller portion of small package costs, but loom large in truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments.

For years, TOTALogistix has maintained a private fuel surcharge, offering our clients a large degree of protection from fuel price volatility. The schedule was in place long before fuel prices went crazy. Costs will still go up as the national fuel index climbs, but at a more manageable rate.

Freight in general, for all its nuances and pitfalls, can be budgeted for. Being fully exposed to the effect of oil price spikes, though, can throw a major monkey wrench into your projections. We asked in this space last week, what can you do to better manage your costs? Here’s one answer: take advantage of the risk mitigation the TOTALogistix fuel surcharge schedule provides.

Does our private surcharge program make sense for you? Not being beholden to any carrier, we can give you expert, independent recommendations that put your best interests first.

Kirk Shearer
President
TOTALogistix
http://www.totalogistix.com/
800-989-0054 x103