Case Studies Paragon Transforms Transportation Planning for FFE

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	Paragon Transforms Transportation Planning for FFE

Paragon Transforms Transportation Planning for FFE

Technology Category	Functional Applications - Fleet Management Systems (FMS) Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
Applicable Industries	Food & Beverage Transportation
Applicable Functions	Logistics & Transportation Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases	Fleet Management Predictive Maintenance Supply Chain Visibility
Services	Software Design & Engineering Services System Integration
Challenge	Despite the size and complexity of the FFE food distribution operation, transportation planning was carried out manually by staff located at each of the fourteen FFE service centers. This meant the service centers had limited visibility of the whereabouts of the truck, trailer and driver resources as well as the arrival times of the line haul trucks. Although planners scheduled pickup and delivery slots, an unsatisfactory level of appointments failed to meet the promised windows. Missing appointment times resulted in a number of problems. FFE incurred penalty fees which unnecessarily increased transportation spend. A proportion of food items were destined for production usage, so a delayed delivery could result in problems further down the supply chain with food processing plants lacking the correct ingredients to make the end products. Finally most food items have expiration dates, so late deliveries Streamlining the planning process reduced the shelf life of customer products. As a result of these issues, customer service suffered and sales stagnated. FFE runs its line haul operation on a weekly schedule, picking up products from vendors at the end of the week, and making movements over the weekend. The freight is then delivered to end customers at the beginning of the week. While orders were accepted up until close of business on Thursday, staff in the service centers struggled to complete the planning process in a timely fashion, often resulting in schedules not being ready until Saturday or Sunday. FFE increasingly found itself subcontracting to other carriers to fill the gap when they did not have trucks positioned correctly, costing the company up to $400k per month. Read More
About Customer	Frozen Food Express (FFE) is one of the largest temperature-controlled LTL operators in the US. The company uses its fleet of 150 line haul trucks to transport food between its fourteen service centers. Chilled and frozen food is cross-docked on arrival and then stored in the DC. Items are subsequently delivered to end-customers by FFE’s pickup and delivery fleet of 660 delivery trucks. With more than 6,500 deliveries and collections each week, using a fleet of 1,150 refrigerated, dual-temperature trailers, operational efficiency is key to achieving efficient food distribution, maximum utilization of expensive assets and reliable customer service. Read More
Solution	Automating the planning process with Paragon’s routing and scheduling software has provided FFE with visibility of all line haul truck and trailer movements between the FFE service centers. The planning team now know when trucks are going to depart and return to each service center so can maximize utilization of their pickup and delivery trucks, provide more accurate information to their customers and generally manage their food distribution operation more efficiently. 'When we create a load, we select the time for pickup and delivery and that delivery time is planned so that every order on the truck will make their service objective. As a result, on-time deliveries have increased,' explains Walter Martz, Senior Analyst, FFE Transportation Services, Inc. 'Knowing where trucks are and who is available to deliver those loads has greatly added to the efficiency of our transportation operation. In the past, we had to subcontract to other carriers to haul our loads because we didn’t have enough trucks available. Paragon has helped us eliminate this expense while also removing the penalty fees for not meeting promised delivery windows. Together that is a saving of up to $400k each month.' An important benefit of the project was centralizing the transportation planning process. A dedicated team of three planners based in Lancaster is now responsible for planning all line haul operations, freeing up regional staff to focus on service center operations. Automating the planning process means that all orders are automatically loaded into Paragon from FFE’s Order Management System. This allows the planning team to review the latest plan daily rather than individuals across the service centers independently trying to find the time for planning. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Fleet Management Systems (FMS)

Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems

Applicable Industries

Food & Beverage

Transportation

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation

Warehouse & Inventory Management

Use Cases

Fleet Management

Predictive Maintenance

Supply Chain Visibility

Services

Software Design & Engineering Services

System Integration

Challenge

Despite the size and complexity of the FFE food distribution operation, transportation planning was carried out manually by staff located at each of the fourteen FFE service centers. This meant the service centers had limited visibility of the whereabouts of the truck, trailer and driver resources as well as the arrival times of the line haul trucks. Although planners scheduled pickup and delivery slots, an unsatisfactory level of appointments failed to meet the promised windows. Missing appointment times resulted in a number of problems. FFE incurred penalty fees which unnecessarily increased transportation spend. A proportion of food items were destined for production usage, so a delayed delivery could result in problems further down the supply chain with food processing plants lacking the correct ingredients to make the end products. Finally most food items have expiration dates, so late deliveries Streamlining the planning process reduced the shelf life of customer products. As a result of these issues, customer service suffered and sales stagnated. FFE runs its line haul operation on a weekly schedule, picking up products from vendors at the end of the week, and making movements over the weekend. The freight is then delivered to end customers at the beginning of the week. While orders were accepted up until close of business on Thursday, staff in the service centers struggled to complete the planning process in a timely fashion, often resulting in schedules not being ready until Saturday or Sunday. FFE increasingly found itself subcontracting to other carriers to fill the gap when they did not have trucks positioned correctly, costing the company up to $400k per month.

About Customer

Frozen Food Express (FFE) is one of the largest temperature-controlled LTL operators in the US. The company uses its fleet of 150 line haul trucks to transport food between its fourteen service centers. Chilled and frozen food is cross-docked on arrival and then stored in the DC. Items are subsequently delivered to end-customers by FFE’s pickup and delivery fleet of 660 delivery trucks. With more than 6,500 deliveries and collections each week, using a fleet of 1,150 refrigerated, dual-temperature trailers, operational efficiency is key to achieving efficient food distribution, maximum utilization of expensive assets and reliable customer service.

Solution

Automating the planning process with Paragon’s routing and scheduling software has provided FFE with visibility of all line haul truck and trailer movements between the FFE service centers. The planning team now know when trucks are going to depart and return to each service center so can maximize utilization of their pickup and delivery trucks, provide more accurate information to their customers and generally manage their food distribution operation more efficiently. 'When we create a load, we select the time for pickup and delivery and that delivery time is planned so that every order on the truck will make their service objective. As a result, on-time deliveries have increased,' explains Walter Martz, Senior Analyst, FFE Transportation Services, Inc. 'Knowing where trucks are and who is available to deliver those loads has greatly added to the efficiency of our transportation operation. In the past, we had to subcontract to other carriers to haul our loads because we didn’t have enough trucks available. Paragon has helped us eliminate this expense while also removing the penalty fees for not meeting promised delivery windows. Together that is a saving of up to $400k each month.' An important benefit of the project was centralizing the transportation planning process. A dedicated team of three planners based in Lancaster is now responsible for planning all line haul operations, freeing up regional staff to focus on service center operations. Automating the planning process means that all orders are automatically loaded into Paragon from FFE’s Order Management System. This allows the planning team to review the latest plan daily rather than individuals across the service centers independently trying to find the time for planning.

Impact #1	Increased visibility of all line haul truck and trailer movements between the FFE service centers.
Impact #2	Centralized transportation planning process with a dedicated team of three planners.
Impact #3	Automated planning process integrated with FFE’s Order Management System.

Impact #1

Increased visibility of all line haul truck and trailer movements between the FFE service centers.

Impact #2

Centralized transportation planning process with a dedicated team of three planners.

Impact #3

Automated planning process integrated with FFE’s Order Management System.

Benefit #1	Reduced transportation costs by up to $400k per month.
Benefit #2	On-time delivery improved by 12% in 6 months.
Benefit #3	Reduced weekly brokered loads by 90%.

Benefit #1

Reduced transportation costs by up to $400k per month.

Benefit #2

On-time delivery improved by 12% in 6 months.

Benefit #3

Reduced weekly brokered loads by 90%.

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Overview

Paragon Transforms Transportation Planning for FFE

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit