When you run a business, it can be difficult to know which challenges to address first. Upgrading your systems and processes can be disruptive, even when change is necessary. However, businesses which can adapt and create flexible supply chains have an advantage.
This case study explores the challenges faced by one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electrical heating, located in New Zealand. Through efficient road freight management, the company has seen improvements in both productivity and customer satisfaction.
The Challenge
As a large and well-established business, the company deals with complex orders and high volumes. The operation is complicated, with different manufacturing and assembling facilities. Goods need to be collected from a variety of locations and delivered nationally,often to remote destinations. The receivers of these deliveries are retail outlets, with their own protocols and schedules for delivery that must be correctly followed to avoid wasted time or missed deliveries. Furthermore, the appliances are fragile and require special care when transported. A rough journey or improper unloading could damage the products. Once the goods are packed on the trucks, the company has no way of knowing what condition they are in during transit.
With these challenges, the company was constantly making compromises and dealing with uncertainty. This meant that significant resources and time were being spent on what should have been routine tasks. Recognising the opportunity to optimise their supply chain through a unified system, the company reached out to Kuehne+Nagel for assistance. They needed an integrated platform that would simplify their road freight management. Kuehne+Nagel had the answer: eTrucknow.
eTrucknow solution
Kuehne+Nagel has designed eTrucknow to simplify road freight management, ensuring your customers are satisfied with your products and delivery. The digital platform also lets your team focus on their specialities. For the appliance manufacturer, this meant access to quality carriers who offered faster transit times. Further efficiency was gained through eTrucknow’s integrated management, which let the company coordinate their daily transportation schedule and plan better.
On top of these organisational and efficiency benefits, eTrucknow also provides visibility of every shipment. Shipments can be monitored from a customised dashboard, with advanced features including shock monitoring and temperature control to ensure shipments arrive in perfect condition.
After choosing eTrucknow, the company was quickly onboarded and received training and support from the experts at Kuehne+Nagel. The benefits were quickly apparent. The company has saved countless hours of productivity. This is due to the integrated management system, which has handled all incoming orders and calculated the most efficient route between locations. eTrucknow’s collaboration features have made communication between the company and its customers simpler and quicker. This means that critical information such as delivery times or delays can be communicated instantly, letting customers know when to expect deliveries and make necessary plans. To date, eTrucknow has facilitated over 11,000 shipments to over 100 locations nation-wide.
- Real-time visibility of every shipment
- Smarter, better-informed decisions
- Most efficient route between locations
- Bird’s eye view of all their shipments
The company now enjoys full visibility of all deliveries, ensuring smarter, better-informed decisions. Furthermore, by addressing these challenges and finding a solution, the company has freed up capacity for handling bottlenecks in other areas, fostering a culture of continual improvement.
eTrucknow provides the tools to make your business efficient, your employees productive and your customers satisfied. No matter the size of your business, eTrucknow can help. Whether by providing our own fleet of certified trucks or by integrating your fleet into our cloud solution, our road logistics solution can better serve your organisation.
Be prepared and stay in control with eTrucknow. Find out more here or schedule a demo with us.