Despite the overwhelming push to digital, the freight industry is one that is still often plagued by legacy methods, which involve paper processing and manual tasks that slow down teams and increase the risk for errors. As a result, companies end up taxing their resources and wasting time that could be better spent on critical tasks for their business – working harder, but not actually reaping the benefits. In an industry that still has so many traditional systems in place, determining where to begin the shift to digital can be an overwhelming hurdle.
To share how shippers can work to reduce the hours, cost, and inefficiencies involved in maintaining their operations and begin the shift toward a digital future, we recently partnered with FreightWaves on a webinar to further explore this theme. Here’s a recap on topics discussed in the webinar, including real-life results from Mays Chemical who has completely overhauled their supply chain operations for greater visibility and efficiency.
Mays Supply Chain Challenges
Prior to turning to Red Technologies to assist in improving their logistics-related workflows, Mays Chemical (Mays), a national distributor of chemical and raw materials, was experiencing the following:
- Limited visibility – Mays had limited visibility of their LTL and truckload shipments and no central location to see all current and past loads, which caused delays when needing to update their customers.
- Manual processes – Some of the manual processes Mays relied upon included printing and entering shipments off on a daily shipment report, manual order entry, and load planning & freight optimization.
- Freight optimization – Mays relied on “tribal knowledge” and history of shipments when looking to combine smaller shipments into full truckloads or multi-stop truckload’s.
Our Solution
Prior to Red Technologies, Mays had 3 full-time employees in their logistics department who managed $1M in freight spend and approximately 1,300 annual loads. After implementing Red TMS, Mays now has 1 full-time employee that manages $3M in freight spend and 4,000 annual loads. This showcases how Mays has been able to grow while experiencing numerous improvements to their transportation operations, which we’ll outline next.
Beginning the Shift to Digital
In order to mitigate their supply chain challenges, Red TMS has been a game changer for Mays’ business in regards to the following:
System Integration
By integrating their ERP into Red TMS, Mays has seen a significant reduction in manual order entry processes. They have also been able to avoid duplicate orders because they no longer have to update two systems at one time.
Routing Guide Maintenance
Mays no longer has to rely on spreadsheets and e-mails to maintain their routing guides because within Red TMS, they are now able to view their entire carrier network in one place. Spot Freight, Red Technologies’ sister company, is Mays’ sole source freight provider, however, Red TMS’s routing guide functionality allows for any shipper to measure their carriers on OTP, OTD, acceptance %, and more so they can easily find which carriers are providing the best service.
Quoting
Seamless LTL and truckload quoting is one of the key qualities that shippers seek when selecting a TMS. Within Red TMS, Mays can view competitive rates amongst a vast LTL carrier network that includes Regional and Nationwide providers. They can also generate shipping documents and send to contacts within or outside of their organization. From start to finish, the entire quoting and booking process takes less than three minutes!
Freight Optimization
Mays heavily ships LTL, however, in order to save time and money, Red TMS allows for them to combine smaller shipments into a truckload or multi-stop truckload shipment if the products are going in the same direction. This not only allows for optimized load planning, but also increases on-time delivery performance. 
Load Tracking & Visibility
Load tracking should be a consistent feature within any TMS solution, however, in Red TMS, Mays employees can add themselves as a “watcher” on a shipment in order to receive proactive shipment notifications. For example, someone in sales may have a high priority load, and Red TMS gives them the ability to provide real-time visibility to their end customer at any time of the day or night.
Providing Real-World Results
Within their first year of using Red TMS, Mays was able to save $100K on their transportation spend and experienced approximately 2,088 hours in time savings. Mays was also able to take advantage of our rapid development. Because all of our developers are in-house, we were able to offer them customized solutions fit to their business and overall quicker delivery of services.