World Trade - January 2009 - (Page 27)

SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION shipments for customer service coordination,” explains Chris Jones. The 4PL becomes “the virtual management arm for an organization,” he said. Brooks Bentz, partner in supply chain transportation for Accenture, LLP, Boston, Massachusetts, says there really is no technology speciﬁc to 4PLs—a term Accenture coined in 1997. “It’s the same technology as what a 3PL or a primary shipper would use when facing the challenges of maintaining data visibility and tracking commodities, collecting freight, managing inventory and coping with security issues throughout a global supply chain.” When it comes to technology, Bentz said, “No one has picked the lock on it yet. There are lots of solutions, but no master solution out there that can do it all.” Applications available in the 4PL arsenal range from supply chain to transportation, order and warehouse management systems, among others, covering the full range of transportation and logistics functions (see box on technology tools). Many 4PLs, or lead logistics providers, offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) hosted solutions—some of which are best of breed and others that are proprietary. What’s key, say the experts, is how they are integrated into a customer’s system. Another major concern is providing customers ongoing visibility logistics related data and information, usually through Web-based platforms or networks. So, for example, Penske ofﬁcials say their Supply Chain Window Web tool provides customers with the ability to check the status of an order down to part-level detail relative to when it will be picked-up or delivered. These experts note that from inventory and order management to shipment tracking, technology is a critical tool to identify bottlenecks and delays, to evaluate carrier and vendor performance and to design and optimize supply chains. “What’s really different from the past is that a lot of technologies were enterprise-centric. You would buy a planning system and only use it in your own company. Now you need systems that can work across enterprises and a solution that you can use across customers, but they only view what’s speciﬁc to them,” said Descartes’ Jones. He cites the example of a Descartes forwarder customer specializing in consumer electronics with competitor customers. The forwarder wanted a common system, but one that would ensure that its own employees could only access data pertinent to their job and the end customer could not access competitors’ data, explains Jones. To meet these sorts of demand, Descartes has developed “role-based access” to shipment data and information available to customers on its Descartes Global Logistics network. The role-based access tool allows for multiple participants to view data while protecting access to conﬁdential information. Transplace in Dallas, Texas—a 3PL that also provides technology for strategy, planning, technology and carrier management services as a 4PL—commonly utilizes technology tools to evaluate customers’ supply chain ﬂow, according to Matthew Harding, vice president for consulting. Harding notes the case of a multi-billion-dollar retailer customer that wanted to save transportation spend on its vendors’ inbound freight. The retailer was receiving a lot of Arm & Hammer Cuts Supply Chain Transportation Costs with JDA Software Leading consumer goods manufacturer Church & Dwight Co (Arm & Hammer) had traditionally focused on selling in the U.S. and Canada until a series of acquisitions expanded its range of personal care, household and specialty products into Latin American, Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian markets. Challenged to streamline its burgeoning global supply chain and better meet retailer demands, Church & Dwight initially focused on reducing transportation expenses. Increased retail diversity and the need to optimize inventory led the company to also seek out technology that would drive improved planning and forecasting for its wide assortment of stock keeping units (SKUs). Church & Dwight replaced in-house systems with a JDA® Software supply chain solution suite, including forecast planning and transportation management. The company has since increased household product offerings by 67 percent, while decreasing inventory levels by 10 percent. Additionally, Church & Dwight increased on-time and full deliveries from 82 percent to 90 percent. JDA’s forecasting solution has increased Church & Dwight’s visibility into key retail accounts worldwide. The solution generates accurate forecasts by assessing multiple years of sales history, and takes into account frequent promotions. “Forecasting is the root of good deployment and production planning,” stated Sam Dragotta, Church & Dwight’s senior director of supply chain. “The beneﬁts realized have been threefold—improved caseﬁll, on-time deliveries and a reduction from 80 to 55 days of supply. We’ve leveraged JDA solutions to improve forecasts and to plan product launches and promotions.” On the transport side, Chad Whyte, senior manager of corporate transportation, commented: “JDA’s transportation m a n age me nt s o l u tions provide a reliable method for planning inbound and outbound shipments, and the ability to merge inbound loads from materials suppliers with outbound shipments. The solution provides alerting capability, which signals when forecasts and shipment schedules are out of balance, and has effectively automated Church & Dwight’s carrier-selection process. The results are increased carrier capacity and reduced transportation spend in certain areas, as well as better negotiations with the company’s carrier base.” small, frequent shipments from individual vendors, which were costly because they required less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments that the retailer was subsidizing. Transplace worked with the retailer’s vendors to evaluate their pickup information. Using optimization and execution tools they analyzed “various cost components of the current network and contrasted them with future scenarios.” The recommendation was creation of a cross-dock operation located closer to the vendors, allowing for consolidation of shipments on less expensive truckload shipments. According to Harding, the customer saved “multi-millions the ﬁrst year of deployment.” “We used our consulting services to do the analysis. Once we determined economies of scale, we used our WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM 27 http://WWW.WORLDTRADEMAG.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Trade - January 2009

World Trade - January 2009 Contents Supply Chain Finance Conference: The Right Stuff at the Right Time! Is the Dollar's 'Exorbitant Privelege' as the Global Standard at Risk? Supply Chain Watch Tradewinds The Rise of the 4PL An Evolving Tech Backbone Makes 4PL Service More Effective The Changing Landscape of U.S. Railroads Intermodal Grows Up Port of Hamburg Grows as Distribution Point to Eastern Europe Outsourcing Without Fear Measuring the Carbon Footprint

World Trade - January 2009

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