Advisory & Solutions
Performance Measurements
Unfortunately, companies often lack a deep understanding of their freight expenses compared to other areas of their business. This can be attributed to the legacy of non-standardized information and communications, such as paper Bills of Lading, which make it difficult to allocate freight expenses to specific items. As a result, profitability calculations are often based on high-level estimates regarding freight expenses, leading to incomplete profitability analytics and potentially sub-optimal decisions and results.
// FREIGHT THINK IN ACTION
A small supplier from Wyoming was shipping bulky items (freight collect) in individual cartons on pallets directly to individual locations within a retail chain.
With few LTL shipments originating from Wyoming, the LTL rates were quite high and averaged approximately $6.00 per unit. Upon discovering this, shipments were switched to a parcel-friendly case-pack with 4 units per carton, resulting in significant freight savings of approximately $3.50 per unit.
Over the next few years, this translated to savings of several hundred thousand dollars for the shipper. The switch also eliminated the need for pallets and offset the cost of corrugated packaging, while also resulting in shorter transit times as an added benefit.