The Brief
An overseas beverage producer, with offices in New York, was looking for a way to streamline their logistics and reduce the high cost associated with their supply chain management. Their products are perishable and require temperature-controlled deliveries all over United States. It was a challenge for them to manage more than 150 incoming containers and 1,200 customer deliveries per year. The Company incurred large spikes in expense due to numerous factors but primarily due to the difficulty managing both logistics and warehousing. They had issues managing their third-party warehouse and were unable to effectively impose the FEFO/FIFO policies necessary to avoid losses of accumulated unsold expiring products.
The Approach
They increased their staff with an experienced industry expert. Unfortunately, the fixed cost of maintaining such a position became a financial burden due to the seasonality of their business and the size of their operation. They spoke with other 3PL’s who were not able to provide the customized service they required for an efficient and effective operation. They needed a partner who could provide a custom solution tailored to their unique needs. They knew BMT Foods as an experienced supplier and tuned to BMT Trade Services for help.
The Result
After analyzing their needs, BMT Trade Service came up with a tailored solution, allowing them to maintain control over their logistics activities, but relieving them of the managerial burdens that accompany that activity. BMT Trade services would assume responsibility for their inbound and outbound traffic, providing a complete end to end logistical solution. This included managing container deliveries from the Port to arranging and tracking deliveries to customers. In addition, we created a tailored tracker, where the user can easily login and check the status of shipments. With BMT Foods deep knowledge base in the food and beverage industry and our expertise in operations and logistics, we were able to address their critical needs, allowing them to execute an effective supply chain system. In addition, given BMT Foods larger business footprint, Trade Services was able to negotiate better rates and terms with service providers throughout the supply chain.
The Impact
Our client was able to improve their vendor performance score enormously, by utilizing BMT Trade Services to manage customer deliveries and become an efficient and effective supplier. While improved performance was the goal, Trade Services was also successful at reducing overall supply chain expenses and in doing so, turned supply chain costs from fixed expenses into variable expenses.