Page 111 - Inbound Logistics | April 2017 | Digital Issue

IT Toolkit

grouping those vendors together,” Stull twice every month with full truckloads, n Freight under management
says. “And they can see if it is a good no one is ever going to think about or increased by 3 percent.
idea from their cycle standpoint and route those trucks any differently. With n55 percent of all managed freight
make sure it is not damaging inventory another vendor, you are only partially is now measured against pre-optimized
levels or increasing carrying costs. filled weekly,” Michalski says. “The ordering and routing plans.
“Knowing up front that it will work is a Crossbow system will find that you can n77 percent of orders meet the pre-
lot better than what we were doing in the take those full trucks, run them weekly, optimized targets.
past, which was hit and miss,” he adds. and swing by and get the inventory n Increased freight consolidation
“Crossbow allows companies to ana- from the other vendors. You can run drove an average of 8.7 percent year-
lyze their order patterns and identify four trucks instead of six trucks.” over-year reduction of total inbound
opportunities to change them without freight costs.
negatively impacting inventory levels,” Heading Into the Future n For orders projected to fall short
Michalski says. “There is an ingrained The two companies worked together of freight financial targets, 14 per-
assumption that what is good for one successfully to train the staff. “It has cent of potential savings loss is avoided
side is not good for another. been a big change from how we were through real-time monitoring and cor-
“Inbound logistics typically asks pur- doing business in the past,” says Stull. rective action.
chasing to buy in larger increments, “Using the technology is easier than get- Stull says the technology is a success
but that assumption doesn’t reflect real- ting all our supply chain partners to be story, and he and his team are continu-
ity,” he adds. “You can manipulate the proactive. They are used to being reac- ing to explore Crossbow’s functionality.
patterns to order more frequently and tive. The buy-in has been good.” They are also extending their partner-
yet fill the trucks better. Ben E. Keith has seen some impres- ship with ArrowStream as beta testers of
“If you bring in freight from a vendor sive results: new functions. n

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USA | ARGENTINA | BRAZIL | CHILE | COLOMBIA | MEXICO | HONG KONG April 2017 • Inbound Logistics 109