Freight Consolidation Key for Evans Transportation Customers

The first thing we need to do is to understand the data, compile it, and evaluate the patterns. We look for opportunities to take advantage of the data, either on its own or with another Evans customer. We also look at the possibility of it dovetailing into an existing program. The analysis is always that first piece, and then working with our customers to understand the flexibility they have follows.

One of our customers is a multi-national food and beverage company, and we manage food ingredients for them in a geographic region, specifically in the northeast. Working with their team and their suppliers, we created a new schedule to implement in SAP that helped organize the PO process to ship specific days of the week. This solution forced these consolidations to occur, and then we routed the larger shipments into their plants. Savings for this client came in at an impressive 28%.  

We’ve also been providing customized consolidation solutions for a multi-national manufacturer for some time, and we do this in three different locations for them. They have vendors throughout a specific geographic region that make widgets of all types. We pick up from all of these suppliers with LTL or cartage agents, and we consolidate all of those shipments into full truckloads that we run into plants, and in most cases, a specific plant. The destinations on all of these shipments used to go LTL and touch several different terminals, but they no longer do that. They now go to one dock, and a full load of product going to one place is directly delivered multiple times per week, depending on the volume. That does a few things; first, we can do it at savings, and at the same time, we improve the speed of delivery.

 Another significant benefit is that this freight is only getting touched at a few locations, namely at the point of pickup, terminal, and the final delivery, instead of maybe five, six, or seven times. The result is that damages, which used to be more than 3-4%, are now negligible, and this is important not just because they don’t have to file claims on it, but they also don’t have to go back to their suppliers and tell them things like, “you need to change your packaging to make sure this can run in LTL.” The result was a 10% in freight savings and over a 90% reduction in claims.

Key freight consolidation takeaways with Evans Transportation:

• Evans brings a ton of experience to freight consolidation.

• Evans customers anticipate savings on actual transportation costs.

• Customers anticipate savings related to the reduction of damages and freight claims.

• We execute freight consolidation for very demanding, complex customers.

• Evans partners with our customers to create and design solutions that work within all of their specific organization complexities.

• Consistency is critical; customers have expectations and are looking for solutions from Evans.

• Huge organizations may have an "Easy Button" in place, whereas Evans doesn't just train the customer and the carrier. We are training their suppliers, so everything works well together.  

In the end, it takes people with real experience and expertise to craft and sell the solution and to show them the ROI. It's not just freight savings. It's fewer claims, speed to plants, the lack of missing shipments, and knowing exactly where their products are, and this is when consolidation provides real value.

While technology is undoubtedly important and helps support all of these things, it’s the people that do it. Evans Transportation has those people. If you require a customized freight consolidation solution, contact us today, and we’ll get you rolling.