I look forward to this week every year. It's National Truck Driver Appreciation week as designated by the ATA (American Trucking Associations).

All week long we have been celebrating one of our most important associate bases -- our fantastic drivers. Our drivers deliver more than 2 billion pounds of goods annually and never take a day off from demonstrating the values of the KANE Code.  

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.

Here at KANE, we are big proponents of freight consolidation. So big that, when we thought of writing about possible barriers to consolidation in this week’s blog, we were worried that it might be too quick a read: “There are no barriers to working with freight consolidation services companies. Thank you for reading.” 

All kidding aside, we can think of a few companies for whom freight consolidation might not be a good fit. Read on to see if you’re one of them. 

When your product is ready to hit the road for delivery but your freight volume can’t justify the cost of a full truckload, what do you do? For many shippers, it comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils: ship via costly less-than-truckload (LTL) or wait to build a full truckload and risk missing retailer requested arrival dates (RAD). However, there is a third option: freight consolidation services (or “load consolidation services”) with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, where your load “shares the ride” with others like yours. 

Shippers often work under the assumption that the way they ship freight (and the associated costs) are pretty much fixed and can’t change.  But just because “it’s always been done this way” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t challenge the status quo. At Kane Is Able, we’ve identified a ton of ways to reduce freight costs, with changes you can begin implementing today.

If your business has geographic markets with high concentrations of customers, it may make sense to get closer to regional carriers in these markets. Carriers and 3PLs who specialize in regional transportation are uniquely equipped to support your supply chain in the areas of the country most important to your business. 

In light of the current freight capacity crunch, the freight management logistics operations of many companies have devolved into scrambling to find trucks for pending loads.  While that may be a very real and necessary approach at the moment, “scrambling” is not a great long-term strategy. Shippers need to change the way they work with carriers in this seller’s market.

As the truck capacity pinch grows tighter and tighter, you may have found yourself in a role reversal with your carriers. Freight transport is now largely a seller’s market and, as a shipper, you may find yourself vying to be a “shipper of choice” among carriers with limited capacity.

But, the current climate is no walk in the park for carriers either. They’re struggling to contend with a worsening driver shortage compounded by regulations like HOS and ELD, which has led to an overall reduction in billable miles per truck – as much as 25%.