But the complexities inherent in manual shipment management weren’t the only difficulty the company faced. Athletic Brewing also found that working with a limited network of brokers and carriers made it challenging to scale up operations and meet customers’ growing demands. And its reliance on the spot market for freight shipments was proving costly.
It didn’t take Athletic Brewing long to realize that the answer lay in digitizing its transportation operations. The best way to accomplish that, its leaders decided, was to find a transportation management system (TMS) that would help it streamline the brewer’s logistics operations, improve efficiency, and control rising costs.
THE RIGHT FIT
The company’s logistics team quickly got down to workand began shopping for the right TMS—one that would help them eliminate inefficiencies and rein in costs. As for specific features, they wanted a platform that would allow them to centralize shipment management, simplify the RFP (request for proposal) process, and expand their carrier options while still maintaining control over their shipments. On top of that, they wanted a TMS with real-time analytics capabilities to help them manage spending.
After surveying the market, Athletic Brewing settled on the ShipperGuide TMS from software developer Loadsmart, which the team felt offered the right combination of technology and people who would be open to supporting the company’s growth, according to the case study.
Then there was the prospect of easy implementation. The software, which Loadsmart describes as a next-gen platform, features a simple and user-friendly interface that, according to the developer, requires less than an hour of training time—a claim that proved to be true. Athletic Brewing says it was able to implement the software in a single day.
SOLID RESULTS
The results have been game-changing, according to the two companies. Since moving to the ShipperGuide TMS, Athletic Brewing has notched a number of wins, including the following:
- A better RFP process and cost savings:Integrating the ShipperGuide TMS software into its operations has enabled Athletic Brewing to expand its carrier and broker network to 30+ providers without added work. Today RFPs are managed through the system on a quarterly basis. This regular cycle allows the company to efficiently handle multiple bids and select the most competitive provider at the service level it needs. As a result, Athletic Brewing, whose costs previously ran about 4% to 5% below average spot market rates, has been able to widen that margin to about 7% to 8% below spot rates, according to Loadsmart.
- Process improvements:Implementing the ShipperGuide TMS has enabled Athletic Brewing to streamline its shipment booking process by consolidating all shipment details and instructions to brokers in one place. And that’s not the end of the story. Shortly after implementing the TMS, the company was able to achieve further process improvements by adding Loadsmart’s Opendock software to manage dock scheduling at its facilities. Now dock appointments are scheduled online by the carrier based on the facility’s availability—a capability that has both provided better visibility and reduced dock congestion.
- Customized analytics:Both the TMS and Opendock have built-in analytics to help users track their carriers’ and brokers’ performance. As a result, Athletic Brewing is now able to provide brokers in its network with performance reviews that include indexed benchmark data on their rates compared with other brokers’ rates as well as carrier performance data, such as percentage of late arrivals, late pickups, and early pickups. These data-driven insights have helped Athletic Brewing secure better rates as well as improved service from its brokers, according to the case study.
Based on these and other efficiency improvements, the company says it’s feeling pretty confident about its ability to handle future growth.
“As our business continues to grow, we’ve built a really solid foundation with our partnership with Loadsmart,” said Carlos Higuera, international and domestic operations specialist at Athletic Brewing, in the case study. “It’s allowing us to handle any volume that comes our way.”
