Over-the-road (OTR) shipping is one of the most versatile and effective methods for transporting goods, but the downside of using it is freight shipping costs are intimately tied to the price of fuel. In addition to fluctuating wildly over the past few years, fuel costs are continuously on the rise: The American Transportation Research Institute reports that the marginal cost per mile has now increased to $2.27. These freight fuel surcharge rates can wreak havoc on a shippers’ bottom line.
Fortunately, freight fuel surcharge rates and high freight shipping costs are totally surmountable obstacles if you have the right tools — particularly in terms of transportation software.
Read on to learn how 3G Transportation Management helped these three companies completely transform their operations and get their freight shipping costs under control.
Green Circle Growers: Cutting Fuel Consumption With Load Optimization
When Green Circle Growers, one of the largest greenhouses and plant providers in North America, underwent a period of rapid expansion, the company struggled to manage its growing logistics operations, which encompassed transportation data for both its dedicated fleet and its sister company, Fresh2U Transportation.
Their manual processes included using a basic ERP system for data storage and spreadsheets for rate management. This led to inefficient control over rate settings, including those impacted by fuel consumption. They realized they needed to invest in transportation software that would give them more oversight and control over complex shipments as well as realize greater savings in overall freight transportation costs.
Implementing 3G allowed the Green Circle Growers team to leverage real-time data and constraints to create more efficient load plans, directly reducing the number of truckloads required to ship their products. As a result:
- Trailer utilization increased from 76.4% to approximately 80%.
- The company significantly cut down on total mileage, labor, and fuel costs, not to mention carbon emissions.
- Optimized processes resulted in an approximate $600,000 in savings on freight transportation costs, as well as a reduced need for load reworks.
Bemis: The Power of Freight Fuel Surcharge Visibility
Bemis Manufacturing, a leading producer of products ranging from toilet seats to medical containers, struggled to manage their logistics with an outdated transportation scheduling system.
While the system had once improved the company’s efficiency, it failed to grow with Bemis’s increasingly modern needs — especially optimizing transportation routes. As the business environment evolved, it was clear Bemis needed more sophisticated transportation software to:
- Handle complexities like fuel surcharges and intermodal rates, and
- Optimize the use of their well-established carrier base.
3G allowed the customer to automate the line haul component of their routing process, making it easy to consolidate shipments and optimize carrier selection, routes, stop-offs, and other critical efficiency factors based on real-time data — including fuel surcharges. As a result, Bemis all but eliminated unnecessary travel and maximized load capacity, which not only reduced fuel consumption and associated surcharges, but also decreased overall freight transportation costs.
AmerCare Royal: Enhancing Sustainability With Load Consolidation
AmerCareRoyal manufactures and distributes disposable food packaging products, a highly competitive industry that requires cost-efficiency and excellent service quality to remain competitive. The only way to achieve this was finding the right technology for their logistics operations.
3G’s software suite helped the company streamline every aspect of their transportation management, including automating both their rate shopping and load consolidation processes. In fact, the AmerCareRoyal team was able to reduce overall miles driven by 20% in the first year, saving over 200,000 gallons of diesel fuel. In addition to these dramatic cuts to fuel consumption, 3G helped eliminate an estimated 22 million kg of carbon emissions, accelerating the company’s timeline for becoming carbon neutral.
In total, the technological upgrade has not only improved efficiency and reduced costs by 6%, but set the stage for significant growth in the future.
Reduce Freight Fuel Surcharges With 3G
There’s no magic wand for reducing fuel costs — it takes a combination of strategies to improve efficiency and reduce waste throughout a transportation operation. That’s where 3G transportation software excels.
3G utilizes advanced optimization algorithms to streamline route planning and load optimization, reducing shipments needed and fuel usage. What’s more, the platform enables more accurate fuel surcharge estimation, allowing users to dynamically adjust routes to minimize or avoid them altogether.
Want to see how 3G can reduce your freight transportation costs? Schedule a demo today.
