Transportation – US Retailer

Client:

US Retailer

Category:

Transportation, Final Mile, Debris Removal

Objective:

Our client had thirty 40’ unlabeled containers originating from China that needed to be devanned, and delivered across the continental US within a 2-hour arrival window to 321 retail locations. 

Challenge:

We had an extremely tight timeline with no room for error since the materials were coming into the LA/Long Beach port. We needed to move them to an offsite facility to be destuffed, palletized, and prepared to hit the road to meet the customer’s schedule for delivery.

Container drayage with a last-minute auditing requirement made the timeline even more of a challenge. Each carton arrived double stacked on pallets with two fixtures or two glass cartons per pallet. The pallets, fixtures, and cartons did not have shipping labels. We did not have much time to create a solution and we had to hit the deadline in time to release the product for linehaul moves to markets.  

Solution:

Fortunately, all cartons had markings on them to identify what was in each one. We were able to quickly work with the client to create and attach shipping labels.  And we coordinated calls to all stores to set up appointments to deliver between the hours 0800 to 1000 on specific days. Then we identified fifteen stores as in temporary space and placed them on the canceled list. To de-merchandize and clear tables, we completed pre-calls (306 stores) and confirmed appointments.

We also rescinded initial communication to pick up and destroy displays and re-communicated with all stores. To review for sake of ease at delivery and to set expectations we produced a YouTube video and posted it for the drivers/dispatchers . And we produced communication and distributed it to all dispatch locations. This communication including the date/time of delivery, process to set up fixtures, removal of all dunnage/debris happened all with completion by 10:00 A.M. local time.

Results:

The project was engineered around Long Beach as the origin for devanning. We line hauled all shipments were via expedited TL moves to 7 Regional Distribution Centers and then fanned out to 77 Final Mile locations to support an average of 4.16 stores per Final Mile location. Delivery windows of 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM were scheduled in advance, and this required routing this as the first stops and routing the balance around these timelines. Our critical transportation management system and tracking tools tracked all updates,, which were approximately 6,700 data entries. And the work operated flawlessly as the one point of control.