Managing transportation services such as local pickup and delivery as well as long haul and white glove services puts a high demand on timing. whether you are a large or small transportation service provider, the economics are the same. Time is money.
My blog this month is about timing. Specifically how Gateway tries to manage the logistics process to provide our clients with the most efficient and economical services to attain the optimum result.
Larger logistics groups would have you believe that its just a matter of scale, once you get big enough these issues go away but after working for one of those groups I know these same issues existed back when I was managing loads for them.
On a daily basis our office emails, calls and uploads routing and loading information to our clients looking to find synergies in freight cartage. Even after all this communication, timing is there to punish us.
Recently we had a 26' Air Ride truck padded van move with a lift gate traveling from Phoenix Arizona to Freemont, CA and the return ride back to Phoenix had only 8 linear feet of space reserved. I reached out to a number of our clients in manufacturing, distribution and in the 3 PL sector letting them know the travel dates.
The Los Angeles and Bay Area is serviced from our warehouse and back pretty frequently so this is a regular process, however no matter how many times we make this run and communicate it Time always seems to punish us.
Our last trip we worked a week on 2 separate items coming inbound to Phoenix the dates to be in San Jose for pickup and City of Industry for pickup was made available, would you know that each shipment was "Not ready for pickup" on the schedule date specified but that each client called me...the very next day..to say their freight was ready.
This kind of timing is what punishes freight management.
This same scenario plays out on the local level as well. We plan to run our pickup and delivery trucks as efficient as possible. We had a number of clients schedule to pickup last Tuesday so I reached out to a very good client of ours that we perform fulfillment work for to make a stocking pickup since our truck was a few blocks away and had space.
The units were not ready for us to pickup while we were in the area but were ready for pickup the next day when we were scheduled on the other side of town. Don't get me wrong we understand production schedules, order changes and cancellations and we are here to serve our clients but that's why Timing is so important.
In each of the scenarios above the economies of scale would allow us to charge our clients less for pickup since they are in route and would help keep our costs down, but the timing of one day or even an hour can make our costs increase and thus those charged to our clients.
Even when you do your best, which everyone here in the Gateway office does, to plan, communicate and ensure shipping success sometimes "Time is NOT on my side" which is a completely different song, sung by a much more infamous group (The Rolling Stones).
What makes you, as a freight manager feel great is when everything does work out logistically. Each load is available and on route and all the pieces fall into place, that's a great feeling and here at Gateway we celebrate those days more than the frustrating days like the ones mentioned above, but this blog is about Time and a few of the challenges we encounter as freight managers.
Time...why you punish me?
Gateway Crate and Freight and Gateway Optimum Transportation is an asset light 3PL and Freight Forwarder managing International and Domestic Freight and Logistics for corporate and residential customers out of their headquarters in the Valley of the Sun Tempe, Arizona. Visit www.gatewaycrateandfreight.com or www.gatewayot.com for more info and a complete list of services.
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