In our “Dispatches From the Road” feature, the KANE Blog will periodically publish interviews with our drivers – the men and women who live and breathe the transportation topics we often write about. In our third installment, we interview KANE driver, Scott Donlin.

This week’s blog post was written by Jack Ampuja, president of Supply Chain Optimizers – a specialized consultancy that helps companies control supply chain costs through packaging optimization.

While dimensional weight pricing has been applied in domestic ground parcel since 2013, recently it has also migrated into the less than truckload sector; because dim weight pricing is based on shipment density, this makes efficient packaging more important than ever. In fact, effective packaging can actually drive freight costs down.

The 3PL industry has changed drastically over the last 10 years.

Among the many things on the plus side, the industry continues to grow at a healthy rate and shippers today truly recognize the value 3PLs bring to their businesses.

But we need to be careful that this growth does not come at the expense of you, the customer.

Recently, a crack team of logistics detectives (aka “business students”) from the University of Scranton arrived at KANE’s Scranton distribution campus. Their mission: audit and document best practices in warehouse/DC sanitation for their senior class project. Code name: Operation Clean Team. The results of the mission have been kept secret – until now. 

For those of us with a little perspective on the 3PL industry (yes, that’s code for “I’m getting old”), the landscape has changed pretty dramatically over the last 10–15 years. 

M&A activity has resulted in fewer, larger players.  The assumption of the acquiring companies is that bigger is better – both for customers and shareholders.

They differentiate based on MORE – locations, trucks, people… But does “more” really improve the customer experience or drive bottom-line value? Or, in many cases, is it just window dressing?

In “Dispatches From the Road," the KANE blog features interviews with our drivers – the men and women who live and breathe the transportation topics we often write about. In this latest installment, we interview KANE driver Gary Allagrucci. 

Warehouse productivity. Every warehousing operation on earth would like to be more productive, but too few actually invest the time to stop, retool and make it happen. Fortunately, there are relatively small things that just about every operation can perform in the here and now to boost productivity without major investments of time or money.

As inflation continues to drag down earnings and increase costs for U.S. businesses, companies are taking a hard look at their transportation spend and how they can reduce freight costs.  Here are eight simple strategies to consider. 

1.     Hold freight.  Combine multiple shipments to maximize utilization of trailer space.