In 2017, Koch Foods, one of America’s largest chicken producers, decided to implement its first TMS after decades of reliance on analog processes. As a $5 billion+ company, with around $200 million in annual outbound freight spend and multiple business units, a TMS was needed to consolidate and modernize transportation processes. A dedicated procurement initiative was pursued, during which numerous TMS offerings were vetted. In the end, 3G’s TMS was selected because it presented the best-class-in its capabilities, flexibility, and cost.

Koch Foods’ immediate TMS objective was taking a control tower approach to freight transportation. With enhanced visibility into carrier rates & performance, and the ability to isolate time-consuming bottlenecks, the transportation team was able to identify opportunities for more efficient use of resources and provide new sources of value for both Koch and its customers.

The data derived from the TMS made it easier for Koch to not only assess carrier performance, but also to manage a larger carrier network. The ability to benchmark paid rates against the broader freight market for all component divisions has led to better, and continually evolving, procurement controls. Simultaneously, a growing broker and carrier network has enabled significant flexibility to use the right mix of contract and spot market rates.

Rate analysis, review, and routing guide processes using 3G’s TMS have allowed Koch Foods to identify opportunities to reduce spend. Through a combination of dedicated lanes, rate analysis, procurement controls, and internal spot market performance KPIs the company realized a substantial savings in freight spend within the first year!

Koch Foods’ implementation of 3G’s TMS was completed prior to a global pandemic, immediately testing the system’s ability to help confront the resulting uncertainty. The TMS helped the company to minimize cost increases during a hot freight market as well as uncover unexpected factors that were increasing costs.

The TMS has brought the Koch Foods’ transportation operation forward by leaps and bounds.

With a solution in place, the company is in a better position to operate efficiently in any set of market conditions and is looking forward to the future. As the carrier network has grown and becomes more refined, Koch Foods will be in a better position to add new layers, both to its operations and the TMS itself.

As a leading producer of one of America’s favorite food products, Koch Foods has a big responsibility to putting delicious meals, high in economic and nutritional value, on millions of tables every day. Doing so requires equally reliable and cost-effective transportation and for that, Koch Foods has found a partner in 3G.

About the Company

Fabuwood

Fabuwood is an integrated manufacturer of semi-custom kitchen cabinetry. The company, however, sees itself as a technology company that happens to produce cabinets and has built a formidable growth strategy around that philosophy. As a result, its fulfillment times are but a fraction of its competitors’ to the delight of homeowners throughout North America.

The Business Situation

A Tech Company in the Cabinet Business

A tech company in the cabinet business Fabuwood has pioneered the deployment of advanced IT systems in cabinet manufacturing and was the first in its industry to build a business around their use. The company has invested substantially in building this technology, but it also acquires some specialty systems from partners. For freight transportation management, it selected 3G Transportation Management. The team chose to put its trust in 3G for two reasons: its ability to support multiple operations and a shared customer-first philosophy. While many manufacturers choose to outsource logistics planning entirely, the Fabuwood team has a different approach – one that requires maintaining control of operations in order to maintain control of the customer experience. The common focus on the end customer experience led to a mutual understanding of what was really important.

The Solution

3G Transportation Management

3G’s phased implementation approach allowed Fabuwood to go live and begin planning its LTL shipments while continuing to incorporate additional functionalities. While Fabuwood saw the software’s ability to meet its immediate needs, it was 3G’s partnership approach that gave the company long-term confidence. While other software packages probably could have handled the here-and-now, 3G was best positioned to support Fabuwood’s aggressive growth plans. The right transportation management partner had to not only be able to keep up with Fabuwood technologically, it had to be philosophically aligned, too. That meant a refusal to sacrifice customer experience for the sake of additional sales. Upholding its reputation meant working with a software provider that felt invested in the ultimate success of Fabuwood’s own customers. Like Fabuwood, 3G shares a philosophy of growth through continuous improvement to processes and products. For this reason, the 3G development team has worked directly with the Fabuwood team to collaborate on product enhancement initiatives (to the potential benefit of all 3G customers.

The Outcome

Supporting a Commitment to Customers

Fabuwood cabinetry stands on its own for its USA-made craftsmanship, but reduced manufacturing and delivery times make it a true standout in the minds of contractors and homeowners. Therefore, logistics plays a vital role in overall customer experience, supporting over 3,000 dealers with thousands of daily shipments and a five-day average lead time. This is where the TMS plays an important role as well: once cabinetry is built, there is little room for error in managing its journey from Fabuwood’s facility to the customer’s home and 3G is proud to be trusted with that responsibility. An algorithm to reliably & efficiently manage transportation resources, build loads, and route trucks is key to the ultimate execution of the company’s strategy.

ursource is a unique distribution partner focusing on pick, pack, and ship solutions with a primary expertise in the janitorial/sanitary supply market. ursource warehouses nationally recognized products in bulk with next-day shipping to significant population markets such as New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. The company ships daily to more than 4,000 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The Search for Better Shipping Opportunities

The need to implement an efficient, easy-to-use, integrated shipping process with NetSuite was just the starting point for the team at ursource. Daily shipments to more than 4,000 locations, next-day deliveries and unique handling requirements of orders meant new opportunities to leverage regional parcel delivery services in addition to national parcel shipping for better customer service at a lower cost. The team also wanted a solution flexible enough to optimize parcel deliveries with freight (LTL) shipping to implement techniques such as zone skipping to reduce shipping costs.

More Choice and Better Optimization

ursource deployed Pacejet for its cloud-based technology, NetSuite integration, with access to multi-carrier parcel, regional carrier services, and freight shipping. Core features of Pacejet included a shipping workbench for efficient workflow, multi-carrier rate-shopping, automatic label, and paperwork printing. Pacejet also enables zone skipping by processing parcel shipments as if shipped from regional parcel hubs with LTL services used to transport parcels to carrier hubs for forwarding to customers.

Better Service at a Lower Cost

ursource experienced significant cost savings of more than $200,000+ per year in addition to improved warehouse efficiency. The option to activate a regional carrier without disrupting core shipping operations helped the team maximize 20-30% cost savings for parcel deliveries.

Established in 2006, TrakMotive specializes in 100% brand new Automotive Light Duty Truck CV Axles, ATV-UTV CV Axles, Drive Shaft Assemblies and Window Regulators. With two distribution centers, Springfield, MO, and Redlands, CA, TrakMotive serves customers in the United States the highest quality transfer of power from their transmission to their wheels. As they began to grow they were in search of a better shipping solution to help them with their manual entry errors and limited carrier options.

Errors with manual keystrokes and more

TrakMotive was using a few different workflows in order to process shipments and were unable to find an efficient way to ensure data was getting written back correctly. Team members were having to manually key in various repeated pieces of information into multiple systems leaving their business vulnerable to errors. When TrakMotive, searched for a better solution, they reached out to Pacejet due to our trusted Built for NetSuite solution, as well as a sound business referral, to help solve their shipping needs.

With multiple systems and tabs open to process a shipment, their management team required they limit the number of carrier offerings so that they could try to reduce manual errors and time spent at the shipping workstation.

Our solution

Pacejet’s built-in rate shopping capabilities helped enable their staff to grow the number of carrier options to reduce spend and provide variety. Simply having more connected carrier options within their system, has greatly improved TrakMotive’s ability to grow and scale. Now, the TrakMotive team is able to quickly view real-time rates and carrier options directly within their NetSuite portal without having to open multiple windows and tabs in order to compare shipments. That’s just one way Pacejet has helped TrakMotive save.

Manual keystroke errors were one of the biggest challenges that TrakMotive was facing. With Pacejet in place, they are now able to process shipments with scanning and a few single entry keystrokes and the information flows seamlessly into all of their database and supply chain systems.

The outcome

After implementing Pacejet’s shipping automation, TrakMotive saved around $19K in retailer fees by reducing errors on shipments annually. In addition to savings on retailer error fees, TrakMotive added carrier choice, more streamlined processes, and efficient data rules into their process. After running Pacejet for a period, they also increased the number of AutoShip orders running through Pacejet by over 300%, saving a significant amount of time and money. With additional integrated carrier options, TrakMotive has been able to scale and grow their business and serve a broader customer base. And with Pacejet, NetSuite, and their other business systems operating in sync, TrakMotive has been able to save time on their shipping line, shave time off employee manual entry, increase data accuracy, and improve their overall customer experience.

Founded in 2017, Tigris Fulfillment Partners is a leading distributor specializing in kitchen and bathroom products for wholesalers, retailers, and e-commerce businesses across the nation. As they continue to grow and scale, automation and updated system processing are critical to their success. Searching for a more streamlined supply chain process, NetSuite and Oracle Cloud WMS referred Tigris to Pacejet’s Fully Connected Shipping solution to help solve their growing pains.

Searching for connectivity and growth opportunities

With previous systems and processes maxed out and unable to support continued growth for Tigris, James Blunt, Vice President of Operations, saw the need to begin exploring a new tech stack and streamline processes to keep up with the growing customer demand.

Tigris was in search of a shipping platform that would help integrate support for their customer service team, provide accurate rate shopping options for customers, increase quotation processes, and eliminate tedious manual tasks from their shipping workflow. They aimed to reduce manual tasks in providing accurate shipping quotes for customers, retain accurate rates across parcel and LTL, fully connect systems, and implement a seamless integration with NetSuite and Oracle Warehouse Management Cloud.

Our solution

After a long and thorough search process for a flexible and integrated shipping solution, Tigris chose Pacejet’s Fully Connected Shipping platform to help carry out a growth strategy that would allow them to solve their challenges head-on. Pacejet provided Tigris with a solution that determines the best shipping costs, integrates seamlessly with NetSuite and Oracle Cloud WMS, and automates all of the rate-shopping and shipping for all carriers, in one system.

Our platform eliminated the need for manual labor steps, inaccurate shipping rates, time-consuming processes, and provided Tigris with end-to-end visibility for their overall shipping operations.

The outcome

After implementing Pacejet, Tigris reduced their processing time from 50 seconds to 30 seconds per package, and are aiming to reduce it to 15 seconds in the coming months—all with the help of Pacejet’s flexible and ever-growing platform. The amount of time saved per shipment has enabled Tigris to redirect time to help scale their business.

Leveraging Pacejet’s Built for NetSuite solution, Tigris has been able to store their rate quotes and empower their team with accurate information for their customers. With Pacejet, Oracle Warehouse Management Cloud, NetSuite, and their other business systems operating in sync, they’ve been able to save time on their shipping line, shave time off employee manual entry, and improve their overall customer experience.

Tracing their roots back over 125 years, Syntron Material Handling is most well known for their impact on the mining industry. As the company has grown into a global enterprise, their machinery now assists with everything from handling coal and iron ore to power generation and food processing. With company values including safety and sustainability, collaboration, innovation, and being customer-centric, Syntron needed a shipping solution to help them put their customer’s first.

Familiar Shipping Challenges

Working in their Infor CloudSuite Industrial (CSI) environment for shipping with CSI’s out-of-the-box solution wasn’t going to meet their needs based on shipping volume alone. Syntron needed a platform to help them manage their heavy shipping volume and also had compatibility with 3PLs. They landed on Pacejet for a few reasons. In addition to having relationships with Syntron’s 3PLs of choice, Pacejet also didn’t require extensive time from Syntron’s internal team on implementation.

All-In-One Solution

Syntron ships about 60% parcel and 40% LTL and having the ability to process both within the same solution is a huge time saver for Syntron’s team. With CSI and Pacejet, Syntron has one integrated ERP and shipping platform allowing the company to be more efficient and freeing up valuable resources for more important things than routine communication with carriers.

Effective Results

With Pacejet on-board, Syntron was able to take advantage of easy implementation and focus their resources on other critical areas of their Infor CloudSuite Industrial (CSI) ERP upgrade. By streamlining Syntron’s shipping process and consolidating into one system, Syntron is able to get their shipments out the door faster and have tracking details available immediately following, enhancing their overall customer experience. Since customer service is central to their company values, Pacejet was an easy pick for their ERP shipping integrated solution for Syntron Materials Handling.

Seal Shield is a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade hygenic technology. Hospitals, governments, and educational & research institutions trust Seal Shield to provide keyboards, mice, and screens able to withstand the most stringent cleaning protocols, along with ultraviolet cleaning machines. With health and safety at stake, the only thing as important as the quality of Seal Shield’s products is the ability to reliably get them into customers’ facilities.

With a healthy growth rate averaging around 15% year-over-year, Seal Shield reached a point around 2012 where a true ERP was needed, and the company has been on NetSuite ever since. Fast-forward a decade, and Seal Shield has reached another inflection point, requiring dedicated shipping software, for which it selected Pacejet.

In 2019 Seal Shield made a strategic decision to relocate its operation and warehouse function from the west coast to a third-party logistics (3PL) warehouse on the east coast, which went live in February 2020. This was immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered unanticipated growth in demand the very next month. During 2020, the company’s business doubled. However, a year later, it was clear that this arrangement had become a source of uncertainty, rather than an answer to it.

Outsourcing was supposed to increase efficiency and help the team prepare for that which they could not predict. Instead, the team found itself spending significant time developing processes and managing training of its outsourcing partner; an arrangement designed to create efficiencies consequently had the opposite effect. As Seal Shield began to address the pressures that came with a rapid rise in demand, Pacejet became a key component of building a world-class, in-house, distribution operation (in a brand-new facility).

Thus, Seal Shield began its from-the-ground-up, no-expense-spared reworking of its fulfillment operations and Pacejet has developed into a key member of the broader team. It was a welcome addition, especially amidst the colliding forces of unprecedented demand, supply chain slowdowns, and a quadrupling of its inventory holding capacity. While the human team dealt with the uncertainties of sourcing product and managing customer relationships, Pacejet could cut 50% of the human activity associated with packing and shipping.

Unpredictable markets also require the ability to rapidly seize unforeseen opportunities. While the domestic market has largely caught up with its need for antimicrobial office products, the same cannot be said for overseas. Pacejet’s international shipping and customs documentation automation allows Seal Shield to produce commercial invoices and certificates of origin right from its interface with NetSuite immediately when generating the shipping labels and bills of lading. Now, instead of 6-10 minutes of manual entry, fulfillment staff spend under 30 seconds reviewing automatically populated fields.

Though just beginning their journey together, Seal Shield has big plans for Pacejet. In addition to the core functionalities, it has implemented the Address Validation module, as a means of speeding transit times and reducing carrier-imposed penalties. Future efficiencies are also anticipated with Pacejet’s consolidation capabilities – something Seal Shield was previously unable to do with its dozens of daily parcel and monthly LTL shipments.

Seal Shield is clearly proud of its new fulfillment operation, hence its willingness to allow two academic institutions to profile it for their research. It’s not surprising, given leadership’s intense focus on adopting, and developing, industry-leading best practices. Pacejet is proud to be along for the ride, and being a good partner throughout the journey.

Rhomar Industries is dedicated to innovation of environmentally responsible products that offer unique maintenance solutions to the public works, transportation, healthcare, and education markets.

Rhomar’s primary focus is creative solutions for common problems that plague operations and maintenance departments.

Challenge of finding the best freight costs

Rhomar needed a way to reduce the multiple, time-consuming, manual steps in finding the best freight costs across multiple carriers. The team spent too much time entering shipping data into multiple carrier websites and software tools, making the freight quoting process slow and labor intensive.

Errors from manually quoting freight were sending shipping costs through the roof. Rhomar also needed a solution to manage all information required for shipping hazardous materials.

More Accurate Rates, Automated NetSuite Integration

Rhomar selected Pacejet because of its multi-carrier support, freight quoting, rate shopping, and cloud technology that integrates with their Oracle NetSuite cloud ERP.  Pacejet connects Rhomar to a carrier network that enables the team to compare carriers, services, costs, and delivery times without re-entering any data.  Pacejet also provides integrated shipping paperwork to save time and extra work.

Effective Results

Rhomar can now more easily and quickly quote shipping costs, rate shop, and ship with multiple carriers via Pacejet.  Reduced overall shipping costs and elimination of errors are a key benefit of the new solution.  Pacejet integration with NetSuite also automates the shipping process while recording shipping data such as tracking numbers, cost, and price in NetSuite fulfillment records.

*Picture courtesty of Flickr and the Oregon Department of Transportation

Founded on the belief that everything they do should electrify the room, Regina Andrew sparks self-expression and creativity through unforgettable design. Since 1998 their team has crafted unique lighting and home decor for retailers and customers across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Based in the “Paris of the Midwest,” Detroit, Michigan, every Regina Andrew piece is created with the craftsmanship, innovation, and detail expected of Detroit manufacturing and Parisian style. With a large variety of products and a desire to simplify shipping processes, Regina Andrew needed a shipping solution that worked with their ERP and fit their creative mission.

Stuck with Unfashionable Shipping Systems

Regina Andrew’s time-consuming shipping process centered around manual tasks with inaccurate data, little reporting, and poor scalability as they began to grow. They wanted a solution that connected to their NetSuite ERP and consolidated their information in one place. 

Before implementing Pacejet, Regina Andrew used a labor-intensive shipping process where they prestaged orders and manually entered data on carrier sites to provide customers costs. Besides taking a lot of time, this created issues as shipping rates would change, causing discrepancies between what was quoted. In most instances, customers wanted the difference back, which added even more expenses. Regina Andrew also faced challenges related to centralizing and integrating data in their NetSuite ERP. Most of the information they needed was already in NetSuite, but management required a cloud-based shipping solution that connected their data systems to provide robust reporting on billed charges and costs.

Lighting Up the Shipping Process 

After a two-year search, Regina Andrew selected Pacejet due to the long-standing partnership with NetSuite and after a recommendation from UPS. After an easy setup, Regina Andrew had their data mapped between systems and began testing within a few weeks. They immediately found process improvements and building efficiencies by getting real-time rates with the click of a button. Regina Andrew saw a big improvement in packing as Pacejet houses item weight and measurement information prior to processing shipments. Before, employees went between the warehouse and office for information about packing shipments. Now with Pacejet, all the information is in NetSuite, streamlining processes and reducing employee labor costs. Regina Andrew also improved the customer experience by simplifying freight quotes, billing, and providing customers with accurate rates.

A Shipping Solution that Shines

Pacejet’s cloud-based solution simplified Regina Andrew’s shipping processes and consolidated their data within their NetSuite ERP. Regina Andrew doubled their daily shipment volume and processed shipments 80% faster than before. Using their old systems, it would take 5-10 minutes to process small orders. Now, their average time to process an order is two minutes, which quickly adds up since they do a lot of same-day orders.

Pacejet’s automation and exception-based management also help Regina Andrew get ahead of problems as Pacejet indicates issues like incorrect 3rd party UPS accounts before the shipment goes out. This allows the Regina Andrew team to fix the issue earlier and still get the delivery out on time. With products focused on quality, innovation, and style, Regina Andrew now has a shipping process to match.