The Challenge: Peak Season Struggles
A leading sugar company was having reliability issues within their network of transportation providers, particularly within the Red River Valley.
Their regional carriers couldn't manage the company's longer lanes into the Texas and Florida markets, leaving customers with inventory gaps.
Peak season presented an even greater challenge. During this period, the company clears its warehouses of older product and replenishes its stores with product from the recent harvest.
This process required:
- Food-grade trailers
- Weight capacity of nearly 45,000 lbs. per load
- Fulfillment within a tight time frame
Finding a transportation provider that could offer this capacity, skill, and dependability was proving especially difficult. That's when ATS Logistics stepped in.
The Solution: Capacity Powered by Process
ATS Logistics used a proprietary carrier management protocol to score carrier performance using qualitative criteria across key factors. This allowed ATS Logistics to adapt to the sugar provider’s seasonal freight swings and understand each partner carrier's strengths.
When inventory needed to move, the sugar provider reached out their single point of contact at ATS Logistics. That representative first checked capacity with its Anderson Trucking Service (ATS) sister company, an asset-based provider.
If asset capacity wasn’t available through this ATS subsidiary, the request went to the sugar provider’s dedicated ATS Logistics operations team, which used the carrier management protocol to select the best-fit carrier(s) for the shipment.
“We document which carriers have hauled freight for the sugar supplier in the past and how many loads they’ve moved for them,” said ATS Logistics regional carrier representative Logan A. “We also note if they were on time, and if the freight was delivered damage-free. This helps ensure we pick the best carriers for each job.”
The flexibility inherent in the ATS companies' process — ATS asset capacity when it's available, best-fit brokered coverage when it isn't — allowed ATS Logistics to fill gaps in the sugar company's shipping network with efficiency and dependability.
Soon, the shipper-carrier relationship expanded to include as-needed open-deck capacity to help move project-based freight like new processing equipment.
But perhaps the most valuable peak season solution ATS Logistics provided was its just-in-time (JIT) services. The retail industry is beholden to quick turnarounds, tight deadlines, and can't-miss windows of opportunity. As a top sugar company working with some of the nation's leading retailers, the customer needed a provider they could rely on to deliver under pressure.
ATS Logistics’s proprietary carrier management system again proved critical, helping to quickly match capacity with the sugar provider’s JIT delivery needs.
Real Life Logistics: Holiday Hauling Heroics
Case in point: one snowy Christmas Day, ATS Logistics transported 10 loads of super sacks — equaling roughly 450,000 pounds of sugar — to two distribution centers in Texas.
While many of the loads were offered to carriers with a week of lead time, not all were covered in advance. When Christmas Eve arrived, the super sacks were still without coverage.
Referencing the details in their carrier management notes, ATS Logistics found carriers to accept the loads with less than 24 hours notice. Among the carriers available to run on Christmas Day? ATS, Inc.'s dry van fleet.
By matching loads with their sister company, ATS Logistics achieved greater visibility and control over where the assets were and when. ATS Logistics kept the customer in the loop 24/7 via FourKites, a supply chain management software used by many industry-leading brands.
RELATED: Read our guide to stress-free holiday freight shipping.
The Results: A Smoother Supply Chain, A Sweeter Experience
The scalable solutions and reliable capacity provided by ATS Logistics empowered the sugar company to move a high volume of freight dependably through a single point of contact.
ATS served as a much-needed bridge between the company's warehouses and customers, filling the long-haul gaps and last-minute loads with equal skill.
These services, supported by a team of logistics experts and cutting-edge technology, successfully smoothed the bumps in the customer's supply chain, allowed them to serve their customers more consistently, and laid the foundation for an evolving long-term partnership.
Lessons Learned: Key Takeaways for Shippers
With every customer we help and shipment we deliver, the ATS team adds to our company's 70+ years of institutional knowledge. We're driven to share our firsthand insights with shippers like you, so you can succeed — whether you ship with us or not.
- A broker's internal carrier management processes can make or break the efficiency of their solutions.
- Covering gaps in a supply chain can come down to the diversity of a broker's network and the relationships therein.
- A single point of contact streamlines communication between shippers and transportation providers and makes the "find a truck" process more efficient.
- Keeping a good mix of both asset carriers and brokers in your network creates a strong safety net when capacity is hard to find.
