APrior to creating the corporate function, our business units managed their own supply chains. They were
autonomous from each other, and from corporate. There
was an attempt to consolidate the parcel and LTL (
less-than-truckload) spend under common contracts managed
by the largest business unit. This resulted in programs that
served the managing business unit very well but did not
meet the diverse needs of all of the business units.
QYouencounteredsignificant pushbackearlyon fromlead- ers of the business units. What was the reason behind it,
and what was your approach toward overcoming it?
AI encountered immediate pushback from the business unit that had been coordinating the LTL and parcel
spending. The unit did not want to give
up control of those programs. There was
also pushback from business units whose
needs were not met by the current logistics
program. Those businesses needed to use
non-TriMas providers in order to meet their
customers’ expectations, but this spend was
reported as “non-compliant” to TriMas
leadership.
My approach toward overcoming the
pushback was inclusion. I included the
logistics manager of the largest business unit
in meetings and conference calls with carriers and other providers, and made it clear to
him and his boss that my plan was to collaborate with them
and to build upon the work they had already done in LTL
and parcel. For the business units forced to use non-TriMas
providers, I included all of the carriers they were using to
fill the gaps in our program as “approved carriers” until we
completed our program redesign as a group.
QWhat were the biggest operational issues you encoun- tered during your first months there? How did you
address and resolve them?
AThe biggest operational issue I encountered was our carrier selection process. We had a partially implemented TMS (transportation management system) that should
have provided dynamic carrier routing for the sites that had
it. In addition, the rest of the sites had the most complex
Excel-based routing guide that I have ever seen.
The sites without access to the TMS were not using the
routing guide due to its complexity. To address this, I
assessed the status of the TMS implementation and then
project-managed the implementation to completion.
The sites with access to the TMS faced a different chal-
lenge. They weren’t using the system within the framework
of a well-designed shipping process. They just dropped the
TMS in as the last step. In the worst case, the shipping clerks
selected the mode, based on their experience, before enter-
ing the shipment information into the TMS. The software
would then select the lowest-cost carrier with the necessary
transit time within the assigned mode. However, we were
not allowing the tool to show us lower-cost options via a
different mode, opportunities to combine shipments, or
ways to build multistop truckloads. Essentially, the TMS
was just making a poor process more efficient.
The first step was to redesign our shipping process to
optimize the TMS’s value. We combined parcel and LTL
shipments that shipped within two days of each other. We
converted LTL shipments with the same ship date into multistop truckload moves, converted LTL minimum-charge
shipments weighing less than 190 pounds to small parcel,
and combined long-haul LTL shipments
moving within the same week to the same
state or region into pool distribution. By
demonstrating the potential savings, I was
able to get buy-in from the business units to
redesign their shipping process to incorporate the full functionality of the TMS.
QWas there an “aha!” moment when you realized that you had won the trust of
the business units and that you were all on
the same page?
AIt was different with each business unit. With a couple of them, I realized that
I had won their trust when they came to me for direction
or assistance before making a change, instead of just doing
what they wanted and then coming to me for help if it went
wrong. One particularly independent business unit completely surprised me when its president contacted me and
asked that I prepare a complete review of its logistics, along
with opportunities for improvement. We then worked
together to implement the cost-savings opportunities and
had biweekly conference calls with his team to track progress and issues. After a couple of successes, I was just one
of the team.
QBeyond mastering the “art of listening,” which is easier said than done, what advice would you give other executives who walk into a similar situation?
AMy advice is to be patient, build rapport, and do your fact checking. That may sound obvious, but when you
are new to an organization, you want to prove yourself
and show value as quickly as possible. Making changes
before you have a thorough knowledge of what the current
state is, and how it came to be, can be a recipe for disaster.
Remain flexible and adaptable in your approach to a problem, because in the end, both business and logistics are still
about relationships.
