fill up the truck

situation

As a global leader in household and professional appliances, Electrolux sells more than 40 million products to customers every year. Their manufacturing plant in Webster City, Iowa, runs a just-in-time production schedule that relies on incoming shipments from suppliers within a 200-mile radius. The plant received multiple, less-than-truckload shipments each day and arrivals and departures changed daily. This expensive delivery model required at least six different carriers to get the job done.

goals

Electrolux needed a transportationsolution that not only supported its just-in-time production schedule, but also made sense from a cost and equipment perspective.

strategy

Our dedicated team created a solution that functions like a bus route. We utilize one truck that makes multiple stops along a big loop. Now, a single driver is tasked with picking up shipments from each vendor. Individual loads are added to one trailer and just one full truckload delivery is made to the plant. To meet the demands of the just-in-time production schedule we send email alerts to the plant manager to communicate arrival and departure times at each vendor location.

results

For two years running we’ve created a solution that saves money and fully supports Electrolux’s just-in-time operation: everyone knows what to expect. We maximize equipment use and reduce the average cost per mile by filling up trailers and adding mileage to each run. All in a day’s work.




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