RateLinx’ Canadian business growth made it necessary to open operations in Canada. With that process now complete, we are now a part of the “Great White North.” If you are a Canadian shipper looking to save money and/or improve internal and external processes, or perhaps a U.S. company with Canadian distribution centers, please give us a call, eh?

If you are a carrier in Canada, and are looking for cross-border shipping opportunities, feel free to shoot us an email at sales@ratelinx.com.

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RateLinx owner Steven Shoemaker was asked by Courier Magazine if he would be interested in putting together a “Brain Trust” article for an upcoming edition on “The State of the 3PL” in 2011. Steve wrote an article that appears in Courier Magazine’s April edition.

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Inbound Logistics announced their Top 100 Logistics IT Providers for 2011, and RateLinx has once again made the list. We appreciate the honor, it is a testament to our talented staff.

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RateLinx will be an exhibiting at the NASSTRAC Logistics Conference & Exposition held in Orlando at the Buena Vista Palace April 17th – April 20th, 2011. If you are attending this conference, please stop by and visit us at booth 131 next to the main stage.

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RateLinx attended the NACDS Logistics Conference in San Diego on March 15 – 17th, and our Vendor Compliance program was met with enthusiasm by many attendees.

RateLinx is a proud supporter of NACDS and its members. If you missed our booth at the event, and would like information on how RateLinx can help you with your vendor compliance program, please give us a call at 262-565-6150 ext 109 or send us an email at sales@ratelinx.com.

See you next year in Dallas!

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RateLinx owners Shannon Vaillancourt and Steven Shoemaker are invited as guest speakers at the European Supply Chain & Logistics Summit at the Maritim Hotel in Berlin, Germany this coming summer. They will be covering Vendor Compliance and related issues in their presentation.

SCL Europe, being held June 14th – 16th, 2011, is the one of the most highly-attended conferences of the year, and attracts supply chain and logistics leaders from all over the world.

RateLinx clients or those interested in attending may email scleurope@ratelinx.com for more information, or call 262-565-6150 ext 109 for details on how to attend.

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We’ve spoken to more than a few transportation professionals lately that are getting swept into their company’s current “green initiative,” and are challenged with reducing and quantifying how they are reducing their company’s carbon footprint. When asked by company brass to “be more energy efficient” in the area of transportation, where does a transportation manager start? It is widely believed that 3/4 of your company’s carbon footprint comes from your department. While it is a noble strategy that will help the environment, what can you do to make an impact – and quantify it (to look good for your superiors and/or stockholders)?

Let’s think about this. Your company’s goal is to be “green.” What does that mean? Well, you unfortunately are constrained by technology – the fact is that the majority of transportation modes that you utilize to ship your products are provided by combustion engines powered by fossil fuel. That’s a problem. Worse yet, you don’t even own them. Are you able to make your carriers comply with your green energy strategy? Are you kidding? You can’t even get them to use the right dock doors, how can you do that?

The primary goal of Logistics itself is to reduce transportation costs, while reducing the time it takes for product to reach the marketplace in the most reliable mode available. The transportation industry itself has not been a friend of the environment for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, the modes of transport that pollute the least (ocean & rail) are widely seen as less reliable than the worst polluters (truck and air). Also, if your product is damaged while shipping it via less polluting methodology, what good is that when the damaged product needs replaced by another product, while the damaged product is shipped back? Green? No. Cost reduction? Nope.

The first step is a collaborative process with your carriers. They surely have already been asked by other customers as to how they can help with this effort, and many have documentation at the ready to provide you with their plan and steps that they are taking to reduce their energy consumption. This makes sense, because they could receive the same benefits that you will in doing so, including a favorable financial impact, PR benefit, and improved efficiencies. They should be working on efficiencies in their operation anyway, because of all the other benefits. If your carrier doesn’t have an answer for your request, you may want to re-evaluate your business relationship – they are not helping your “green” cause.

Next, employing your IT capabilities can make a significant impact on this effort – and even quantify your success. By utilizing a system such as RateLinx’ ShipLinx system, you can optimize and measure your transportation strategies all the way down to each particular shipment – making your employees accountable, and ensuring compliance with your sustainable green strategy. UPS deliveries now include the option of a carbon neutral charge on a per parcel basis, or, your company can opt for their aggregate program. You will have a system with the ability to quantify and enforce compliancy of your efforts in reducing energy costs, being more energy-efficient, and reducing your company’s overall carbon footprint.

Obviously, there are going to be environmental issues that you cannot control that are inherent in the transportation industry. Carriers themselves have not had the financial ability to upgrade many of their trucks to newer, more energy-efficient models due to the downturn in the economy. Unless the transportation industry as a whole decides to drive a green initiative (or, are regulated to do so), it is going to be a slow process for the promotion of change. Half-hearted conservation efforts by carriers are not going to cut it.

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RateLinx will be attending the World Trade Group’s SUPPLY CHAIN & LOGISTICS SUMMIT 2010 “Recovery in the New Decade: Capitalizing on Post-Recession Opportunities in a Growing Economy” on December 7th and 8th, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency DFW in Dallas, Texas.

Courtesy of WTG, the show will be focusing on:

• Achieving real-time visibility across the global supply chain to guarantee product quality and maintain highly reliable customer service.

• Developing critical paths to accurate supply chain synchronization to increase the overall agility of your operation.

• Reducing vulnerability through strategic sourcing and attentive supplier relationship management.

• Streamlining the transportation and distribution network to reduce carbon footprint and achieve sustainable fleet management.

• Addressing risk and government security compliance concerns to ensure business continuity and profit margin.

We are currently putting together executive “one-to-one” meetings, and slots are filling up faster than we thought. It appears that Vendor Compliancy is one of the main topics of discussion and interest from the show participants that have set up meetings with us.

If you are attending the Summit and are interested in getting together to discuss how RateLinx may be able to help your company, please drop us a line or email WTGLogisticsSummit@ratelinx.com and we’ll plan a meeting time.

See you at the Hyatt Regency DFW, Dallas, Texas on December 7th and 8th!

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(Reprinted with permission from Inbound Logistics, July 2010 edition, written by Steven Shoemaker, RateLinx.)

Third-party logistics companies come in many different forms, and for a while there was not much barrier to entry into the marketplace – particularly the less-than-truckload segment.  Until even recently, the following recipe could be utilized to form a 3PL:

Ingredients:

Freight to leverage
Industry knowledge
Growth potential
Technology – in any form

1 – Take one former carrier representative (or industry ancillary service provider), engage one freight account with whom you have long-term relationship and bingo – you have freight to leverage.

2-  Hang a shingle, perhaps obtain a broker’s license, and you are in business.

3 – Call your old carrier buddies (who left and went to other carriers) and start obtaining rates for your newfound freight.  Ask them “Where’s my volume discount?”

4 – Optional:  To look REALLY smart, you take an old common rate base from the 90’s, perform some “tweaking” to it, and call it your own with a slick name.

5 – Find a way to perform freight payment – either on your own, or outsourced.

6- Lastly, run your clients’ freight through your own books so it looks like your own – puff out your chest and exclaim that you are a multi-million dollar company.  Buy low, sell high.

Voilà!  You have yourself a 3PL.

While admittedly facetious, it is fact that carriers are not particularly fond of 3PL’s – but they figure, “if we don’t give them rates, someone else will.”  And so it went…

As a shipper who may be contemplating utilizing a 3PL, or perhaps evaluating your current 3PL relationship, you may be asking yourself, “What can a 3PL really do for me?”  Let’s examine the common thoughts regarding the outsourcing of your freight today – and explore best practices:

Volume discount – The 3PL will more than likely “have” more freight than you – hence the perception of receiving a volume discount and the likelihood that if you give your freight to the 3PL (that’s right, you are giving your freight volume away) and add it to their other clients’ freight, all will enjoy a greater discount.  The problem is that carriers are currently re-evaluating ALL of their 3PL relationships right now and finding most of them unprofitable, and most are reducing their discounts and cutting off volume pricing.  Best Practice – Carriers can and will provide your company with excellent pricing while eliminating the middleman.  Keep your freight as your freight – have the carrier tariffs in your name by enlisting a 3PL that does not take ownership of your freight as their own, but can negotiate better discounts for you based on their volume and methodology – without taking yours.

Reduced Paperflow – Outsourcing your freight activity should provide you with less paper to review (i.e. carrier bills).  Nothing makes the blood drain from a 3PL’s face faster than when a carrier inadvertently sends a bill directly to their customer, thus lifting the veil on the amount of mark-up on a particular bill.  Best Practice – Enlist a 3PL to automate your methodology, from the initial rate shop, pre-audit, all the way to the freight payment of each freight bill – using rates that are yours, and knowing exactly how much your 3PL is receiving for the service they provide.

Technology – 3PL’s do not create technology – they have to buy it.  They traditionally work off only one ratebase, because they cannot utilize multiple ratebases which are proven to reduce freight costs – and the old ratebases they utilize are not in synch with current network efficiencies of carriers.  Basically, single ratebases are used because of outdated technology.  Best Practice – Ensure that your 3PL has not only technology available for you to rate shop and create bills of lading to actually execute your shipments using your rates, but can provide you with every piece of technology you need for your specific situation and supply chain.  This would include inbound (vendor compliance) capabilities, small parcel, LTL and Truckload, International, Hazardous, real time KPI dashboards, etc. all while being able to integrate it inside your firewall.  Above all, never use only one common ratebase to rate your LTL.  While many still use this old-school practice, it’s a very costly idea – it benefits everyone but you, the shipper.  You will be met with resistance, but persevere.  Current carrier ratebases are developed with their operating efficiencies in mind.  Make sure your technology can handle them and use them – they are free and you WILL get better discounts.  Lastly, make sure your technology can track each shipment vs. your old methodology, which will ensure you “hero status” at your company.

By applying the above, you will essentially:  1) Know that you will be getting better rates, and are 2) Fully-automated and have full disclosure of exactly what you are paying, you can now 3) Relax, because you will have the technology to ensure that you have made the best possible decision and can execute on your freight strategy.

Tags: 3PL Strategy, Reduce Freight Costs, Replace Your 3PL Company
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(Reprinted with permission courtesy of Inbound Logistics magazine, May, 2010 by Steven Shoemaker, Owner, RateLinx)

Evolution is inevitable, isn’t it? It makes sense that transportation management systems should evolve as well. While the concept of Moore’s Law does not necessarily apply to TMS advancements in its short lifespan, there are current improvements available that are making shippers stand up and take notice.

The newest improvement has been the ability to add “context” to a shipper’s transportation data through a TMS that is “aware” of the various pieces that make up their supply chain solution.
Context allows the shipper to understand the actual circumstances that led to a particular event in their supply chain:

• Incorrect invoice charge from their carrier—was this caused by the carrier re-weighing their freight, re-classifying their freight, a particular accessorial charge, etc.?

• Why was the shipment late? Was this caused by inclement weather, did the carrier leave the shipment at their terminal, was the consignee not available for delivery, etc.?

• Inbound freight—when was the shipper’s purchase order fulfilled by their vendor? Which carrier is going to be delivering it – and when? Which purchase orders have been fulfilled? Were they fulfilled completely?

Many consider a traditional TMS as simply expensive load planning software, when it can be so much more. While there are quite a few options from different TMS providers available today, it may be time to evaluate a TMS system by how “aware” it is of the entire supply chain. The following advancements in TMS are emerging, allowing TMS to become aware of the entire supply chain:

• Freight Execution – Utilization of single system that can tender shipments via all modes, thus eliminating the need for bolt-on applications for modes (such as small parcel), allowing the shipper to integrate with their host system with one system, ensuring that the same information is being pulled from the host system and is available in the same format for each and every mode. Also, any and all additional documentation required to tender shipments, i.e. small parcel labels, less-than-truckload and/or truckload bills of lading, pallet labels, hazardous and international documentation, etc. should print at the point of shipment at this stage of the game.

• Freight Payment and Pre-Audit – Matching information from the execution tool above to the invoice from the carrier ensures a more thorough audit – by auditing the characteristics of the invoice along with the corresponding charges of each shipment.

• Visibility and Communication – Providing the shipper’s vendors with an execution tool that has the shipper’s business rules, carriers, and their purchase orders pre-loaded. The shipper’s vendors then can tender shipments to the shipper’s carriers based on the PO number, which removes the shipper’s dependency on the carrier to provide shipper with this critical information.

• Dashboards – Most importantly, there is now the capability of tying together all of the aforementioned data into an all-encompassing Dashboard to help shippers effectively manage their company’s freight activity – real time – giving true context by providing visibility to the data that is flowing in from the TMS, the Freight Payment and Pre-audit, from all of their shipping locations. The best dashboards are real-time, and have each component listed above literally “aware” of all of these pieces, instantly supplying information that is compiled and incorporated into the shipper’s Key Performance Indicators for logistics – specifically utilizing their own corporate KPI’s and specific business rules. This also enables proper measurement and management of both the Freight Payment and Pre-Audit to match the data that is flowing into it, along with providing visibility to the characteristics of each freight transaction.

What do these advancements really mean to the shipper? This finally allows the shipper to determine the meaning of the events that are occurring in their supply chain in a real-time fashion.

Two examples:

• A shipper provides a program for their customers where they receive free freight on orders for particular products. Until they had the proper context, they were unable to quantify exactly how much freight they were giving away, and were unable to leverage this in their marketing campaign to their customers.

• A shipper was having problems with their vendors fulfilling their PO’s in a timely manner. The freight was being shipped directly to job sites, and the lack of visibility and coordination with the vendor was causing job sites to be shut down because the freight was not showing up when expected – only to find out that it arrived sometimes a few minutes after the job site was vacated.

The evolution of the TMS continues… Darwin maintained that all forms of life are interconnected and related, although nobody is certain that PO visibility, vendor compliancy, or freight auditing were on his mind when considering Natural Selection.

Tags: Intelligent TMS, Transportation Management Systems
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