Case Study 1: U.S. manufacturing company (NYSE), $900 million in sales, 5,100 employees worldwide, a 15 person in-house logistics team

The Assignment: Evaluate domestic LTL transportation practices and providers with the goal of reducing costs while maintaining or improving customer service.

Steps:

• Met with the logistics team and developed a list of client approved carriers 
• Put together an RFP which detailed the terms and conditions we required, including accessorial charges and a customized fuel surcharge
• Worked closely with the client to evaluate the price and service offerings from the responding carriers
• Finalized negotiations with those carriers identified by the client as acceptable
• Put together proposed route guides for each plant and distribution center, which maximized cost savings and maintained or improved transit times to the end user

Results: A 15% (fifteen) cost reduction, in the first year, on a $10,000,000 dollar expense.

Case Study 2: International electronics company with $10 billion dollars in U.S. sales

The Assignment: Help the company reduce their U.S. logistics expense while not damaging service to the company’s biggest and most demanding retail customers (Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy.)

Steps:

• Met with the client’s legal department and rewrote the contracts used with carriers. Revising the contracts enabled PMC to negotiate better rates without the client suffering any unintended consequences.

• Met with the logistics staff, and jointly put together a list of carriers that the staff agreed could provide the necessary level of service. 

• Wrote an RFP and sent it to those carriers the client requested.

• PMC suggested traveling to the corporate office of the carrier that was handling the largest share of freight, a carrier that had performed well over a long period of time. The purpose was to tell them what we were doing and why, and also asked what the client could do to improve the carrier’s productivity on the account.

• We reviewed the responses to the RFP’s with the client’s logistics staff. After the carrier selection process was complete we drew up the approved contracts and sent them to carrier and client for signature. We also issued routing instructions for each location.

Results: It was clear that the client could operate more efficiently with fewer distribution centers and service would remain at the same high levels required by the client’s customers.

At the conclusion of the project PMC projected a $27 million dollar savings would be achieved in the first year.

One year later the client reported that the savings achieved were in excess of $30 million dollars.