How Digging Deep Solved Misco Products' Biggest Logistics Management Frustrations
Chemical Manufacturing Company Partners with Logistics Solutions Provider, Implements TMS & Reverses Longstanding 3PL Perception to Dramatically improve Customer Service and Satisfaction, Save Money & Eliminate Burdening Tasks
Overview
Misco Products is a manufacturer of liquid cleaning chemicals used primarily in private branding for janitorial sanitation, food service, education, healthcare and other commercial and industrial markets. With a single location based in Reading, Pennsylvania, the Company transports its products nationally.
Over time, the manual and annual negotiation of freight contracts became a burden for its operations and customer service teams, resulting in the need for a more streamlined and technology-enabled approach to logistics management.
Challenge
Transportation costs accounted for a large portion of company overhead yet the Company was still manually handling all logistics management operations.
As a manufacturer of liquid cleaning chemicals, Misco Products’ water-based shipments yield a high tonnage with minimal value. While the density of the freight is attractive to carriers, it’s incredibly expensive for Misco Products to ship across the country. As a value-added service to its clients, the Company also offers free shipping, causing its freight spend to eat significantly into the bottom line.
The idea of engaging with a 3PL, however, did not seem like an effective solution, as the Company welcomed several meetings with 3PLs in the past that resulted in empty promises of cost savings. Upon reviewing Misco Products’ freight bills, the ‘pitching 3PLs’ would identify that there was not much potential for cost reductions.
As a result of these unsuccessful meetings, the Company’s customer service, operations and accounting departments continued to internalize the burdensome tasks of:
Manual Year-Over-Year Negotiations
Day-to-Day Logistics Management
(including shipment tracking)
Allocating More Funds to Increasing Freight Spend and Internal Resources
Solution
During Misco Products’ first meeting with TLI, the Company’s sour 3PL perception changed. Rather than immediately requesting access to Misco Products’ freight bills to identify unlikely cost savings, TLI listened to and actually comprehended the unique transportation challenges and frustrations Misco Products experienced. TLI then offered a demo of its ViewPoint TMS, identifying all the ways its tools could help Misco Products.
The TMS demo was extremely well-received by Misco Products’ customer service, operations and accounting teams, who immediately recognized the platform’s ability to not only free up valuable personnel and eliminate the need to hire more, but also mitigate the frustrations of manual shipment tracking.
In 2012, Translogistics seamlessly implemented ViewPoint in the background of Misco Products’ daily operations until its go-live date. The entire process was
streamlined, featuring:
List of Services
-
A Phased Integration Approach with "phenomenal" ongoing trainingList Item 1
Translogistics implemented the TMS in phases, providing on-floor training to operators and customer service reps. To this day, training is provided to new hires and as updates become available.
-
TMS modules that “transformed” the entire operationList Item 2
The TMS catered its functionality entirely to Misco Products’ existing processes, carriers and ERP computer system. As a result, team members only needed to learn and utilize a single platform.
-
“Exceptional” customization and comprehension of company needsList Item 3
Misco Products quickly became reliant on ViewPoint’s user-friendly modules that improved processes, customer service and satisfaction company-wide.
What Misco Products' said:
