Travelers Insurance – Three in Four US Manufacturers Expanding, Supply Chain Risks Following

As reported by InsuranceJournal, manufacturing in the United States is in a growth phase, according to a survey by Travelers Insurance revealed that nearly three out of four of the 200 executives queried in the manufacturing sector have either expanded their products or services during 2012, or plan to this year.

Being an insurer, they’re nature/nurture obligated to highlight challenges for risk managers. “All of this growth presents tremendous opportunities – and a host of new hazards throughout the complex, interconnected global supply chain,” said Jim Mandes, manufacturing industry manager for Travelers Commercial Accounts. “Hazards may include less skilled workers, fewer suppliers to choose from and an increased potential for business interruptions.” Even with these valid concerns, Data2Logistics is thankful for this growth trend in US manufacturing, providing them supply chain transportation optimization and cost reduction services (some assisting to un-interrupt business interruptions…).

A Spirit-Raising Survey – Canadian Businesses Expecting 2013 Growth

A recent survey of Canadian businesses commissioned by UPS Canada and conducted by Leger Marketing relayed that three in five business leaders expect more revenue in 2013 than in 2012, despite any economic uncertainties.

This makes for an encouraging North American economic headline, with potential for increased trade volumes between the US and Canada, along with business and consumer spending GDP growth for both nations.

If you’re shipping product between and within the US and Canada, ensure your supply chain’s transportation is optimized for cost savings, maximizing your margins during this (thankful) period of anticipated prosperity. Data2Logistics reduces supply chain costs associated with product transportation through discovery; at the core a business intelligence portal providing for data mining your organization’s current information addressing logistical needs in relation to marketplace options, enabling shippers to ascertain  options and make actionable, time and cost-effective decisions, domestically and globally.

Freight Bill Auditing – Telling Statistics from Those Who Do and Don’t

American Shipper, in partnership with the Retail Industry Leaders Association, recently published a revealing study highlighting shipper’s freight bill auditing activities. Transportation Payment Benchmark Study: A Step Forward, written by James Blaeser, Publisher of American Shipper, reveals aspects of an often closed subject of supply chain management – the financials.

Auditing of freight billing, a practice consisting of both pre- and post-payment processing, is a multi-step system; preformed properly, substantial cost savings result, as unwarranted costs and fees are discovered and eliminated. An additional benefit is improved carrier relations, as payment processing is improved between shipper and logistics service provider (LSP).

Here’s the study’s table-setter:

“Survey results show that the average respondent audits 77 percent of its invoices received from LSPs. Only 48 percent of the respondents review every invoice. The other 52 percent who claim they are auditing are really doing themselves a disservice. An incomplete audit is not an effective audit.

Three quarters of respondents claim the invoices they receive from LSPs are accurate 90 percent of the time or more. This could be considered better than what was expected which is a positive, but compared against other industries, such as utilities, this is very poor. Consider for example the problems that would arise if your home electric bill was wrong 10 percent of the time or more.

Auditing 100 percent of invoices received is only part of the story. Payers should be auditing all the variables in their bills for inaccuracies. Study results show that payers are very focused on the obvious issues, such as rates, accessorials, duplicate invoices, and fuel surcharge. Less obvious trouble areas, such as Inco terms, taxes, and currency conversions, are overlooked by most payers.”

Getting more personal, the study’s sampling of 300 companies reveals these realities:

In 2011, 50% of companies audited their supply chain’s transportation bills prior to payment, 8% post payment, 39% engage in both, and 3%, neither. The 39-percenter’s are benefitting the greatest, as billing accuracy was discovered to be sub-80% a full 24% of the time.  Only 58% were accurate up to 95% of the time. Errors abound, as is opportunity for found money.

The study reveals the percentages of variables audited by bill payers in the 3PL, manufacturing and retail industries. Here’s the breakdown:

·         Accessorials (rate, validity, etc.)

3PL – 90%

Manufacturing – 93%

Retail – 99%

·         Transportation Rates

3PL – 100%

Manufacturing – 94%

Retail – 90%

·         Duplicate Invoices

3PL – 75%

Manufacturing – 88%

Retail – 89%

·         Fuel Surcharge

3PL – 80%

Manufacturing – 85%

Retail – 82%

·         Incoterms

3PL – 35%

Manufacturing – 34%

Retail – 31%

·         Taxes

3PL – 25%

Manufacturing – 33%

Retail – 25%

·         Currency Conversion

3PL – 35%

Manufacturing – 39%

Retail – 24%

These figures highlight opportunity, as auditing 100 percent of invoices received is only part of the story. Payers should be auditing all the variables in their bills for inaccuracies. Study results show that payers are very focused on the obvious issues, such as rates, accessorials, duplicate invoices, and fuel surcharge. Less obvious trouble areas, such as Inco terms, taxes, and currency conversions, are overlooked by most payers.

This study highlights a fiscal need, and the areas under-addressed. For organizations who seek to maximize billing-payment accuracy, an effective way to optimize an organization’s transportation information with utilization of the company’s historical data and industry benchmarks is to form an alliance with an independent freight bill processor that provides thorough pre- and post-payment auditing and payment services, to maximize accuracy and resulting cost savings.

– Tim Nissen, Data2Logistics http://www.data2logistics.com/ + http://twitter.com/Data2Logistics

 

News Release-Data2Logistics Business Intelligence Offerings to Reduce Growing Supply Chain Transportation Cost

For Immediate Release

Media Contact: Tim Nissen

Data2Logistics, LLC

12631 Westlinks Drive

Fort Myers, FL 33913

E timothy.nissen@data2logistics.com

 

 

Data2Logistics Business Intelligence Offerings to Reduce Growing Supply Chain Transportation Cost

 

Fort Myers, Florida and Rotterdam, Netherlands February 20, 2013 – Global supply chain information and technology company Data2Logistics announces their Professional Services Group’s offerings to reduce supply chain costs associated with product transportation through discovery; at the core a business intelligence portal providing for data mining of a shipper’s current information addressing their logistical needs in relation to marketplace options, enabling them to ascertain options and make actionable, time and cost-effective decisions, domestically and globally. Implementation of discovery’s results includes support functions relating to pooled purchasing, RFP management, carrier negotiations, transportation management system software utilization, inbound routing and network analysis, along with informed freight bill auditing and payment services. “We’ve found these areas to be of widespread need throughout the supply chain industry, reducing excess cost associated with organization’s logistics,” comments Leif Holm-Andersen, Data2Logistics Professional Services Group’s Executive Director. “Managing with data and facts will produce the best results and drive excessive cost out of supply chain transportation expense, while strengthening carrier relations.”

 

Data2Logistics Professional Services Group’s objective is to utilize the company’s business intelligence technology, subject matter expertise and knowledge of the marketplace to enhance transportation operations, improve service and reduce related expenses. They identify opportunities to remove excess cost out of end-to-end supply chains to drive company’s profitability, a primary and prominent position of action of supply chain professionals faced with costs of increasing economic, geopolitical and environmental volatility.

 

Data2Logistics’ services enhance organization’s logistics, supply chain, operations, finance and accounting processes, providing information needed to control costs for all modes of transportation both domestically and internationally via LTL, TL, parcel, overnight express, ocean, air and rail carriers. Having full service operations in Fort Myers, Florida, Salt Lake City, Utah and Rotterdam, Netherlands enables Data2Logistics to support companies shipping domestically and internationally, with staff attuned to local cultures and unique business environments.

 

Data2Logistics assists Global 1000, Fortune 1000 and SMB companies to reduce their shipping costs by providing an outsourced opportunity to efficiently process, audit, account code and pay their freight at a significantly lower cost than internal processes. Clients also benefit from the identification of more carrier overcharges than their internal systems can identify. The company provides actionable information to better manage and control transportation cost. As a single source of information for all modes of transportation on a global basis, Data2Logistics identifies and reports opportunities for savings and the reasons for variances in trends. Savings opportunities can be derived from modal shifts, consolidation of shipments, improved carrier utilization, and adjustment to shipment size, as well as monitoring accessorial costs. Reviewing over $15 billion of freight bills from thousands of carriers annually, the company provides a single-source solution resulting in savings on average of 5%-15% of product shipping expenditures per year.

 

For Data2Logistics Professional Services Group information, contact Leif Holm-Andersen, +1 516 807 0256 or leif.holm-andersen@Data2Logistics.com.

 

About Data2Logistics, LLC

Fort Myers, Florida-based Data2Logistics is a leader in supply chain logistics knowledge management, cost control and freight payment. The company’s Ship Smarter and Save actionable information, assists hundreds of clients in the Global 1000, Fortune 1000 and SMB categories, processing hundreds of millions of freight bills annually, valued in excess of US$15 billion, saving clients an average of 5%-15% of their product shipping expenditures per year.

 

As an eight-time recipient of Inbound Logistics’ Top 100 Logistics IT Service Providers, their data mining capabilities creates actionable information for control of current and ongoing shipping cost savings. The company is the only service provider to work with clients and carriers to eliminate billing errors from recurring and to continuously improve and optimize their logistics networks and expenditures, domestically and globally. http://www.data2logistics.com/ + http://twitter.com/Data2Logistics

 

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Supply Chain Transportation - Domestic Intermodal Set for Growth through Transferred Demand

The conversion of over-the-road freight to domestic intermodal appears poised to rise notably during the next few years if federal hours-of-service limitations are implemented as planned and motor carrier costs continue rising.

The stage was set for this demand shift: rising fuel and driver costs are affecting trucking operators. Meanwhile, many rail lines continue to increase infrastructure, furthering their reach. This is a dynamic companies will need to evaluate regarding their freight transportation needs to determine their most cost-effective options.

Data2Logistics has been tracking this trend to assist shippers assess their best modes and service-levels in light of these developments. Data2Logistics reduces supply chain costs associated with product transportation through discovery; at the core a business intelligence portal providing for data mining of an organization’s current information addressing their logistical needs in relation to marketplace options, enabling shippers to ascertain  options and make actionable, time and cost-effective decisions, domestically and globally.

Data2Logistics Opinion Editorial – Data Mining a Pleasant Shipper Surprise

The more a shipper knows about their transportation current costs and options, the more they’re aware of available savings. The deeper they dig, the richer their reward.

That’s the data mining capsulation of the database discovery realization: awareness of cost-saving abilities amid logistical obligations, and the cost savings achievement associated.

According to global trade group Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), fewer than 25% of organizations in North America and Europe are currently utilizing captured data as part of their business process. With high ease and low cost associated with utilization of their information, this unawareness is shocking – and costly.

Supply chain and logistics departments are in prime position to benefit by data mining and assessing electronically-captured billing records and their carrier contracts, by utilizing an independent freight bill processing provider, to realize and receive significant savings revealed.

Whatever the shipper’s volume, the more they know about their transportation billing’s accuracy and options to optimize time and cost effective logistics, the easier it is to ship smarter and save. A freight bill processor is able to offer insight capable of saving an average of 5% - 15% annually on shipping costs.

The processes’ backstory: the University of California – Los Angeles states that data mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information – knowledge that can be used to increase revenue, cuts costs, or both. Data mining software is an analytical tool that allows investigation of data from many different dimensions, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified. Technically, data mining is the process of finding correlations among dozens of fields in large relational databases. Practically, it leads to noticeable shipping savings.

In addition to assessing freight billing accuracy, data mining and subsequent reporting of shipping activity will yield discovery of timely, actionable information that empowers shippers to make the best logistics decisions based on carrier options, along with associated routes, rates and fees. This function also provides a deeper understanding of trends, opportunities, weaknesses and threats. Exploration of pertinent data, in any combination over any time period, enables the operational and financial view of a company’s shipping functional flow, ultimately providing the cost savings.

With data mining, shippers can create reports based on a radius from a ship point, identifying opportunities for service or modal shifts, providing insight regarding carrier usage by lane, volume, average cost per pound, shipment size and service type. Performance can be measured based on overall shipping expenditures, variances from trends in costs, volumes and accessorial charges.

The most effective way to maximize an organization’s transportation information with utilization of data is to form an alliance with a freight bill processor that provides the independent analytical tools and resources, and utilize their unbiased technologies and abilities to make decisions that’ll enable a company to ship smarter and save.

– Data2Logistics, http://www.data2logistics.com/ + http://twitter.com/Data2Logistics

Data2Logistics Finds Pre-Payment Auditing of Freight Transportation Bills Saves Substantially, Continuously

It seems reviewing bills before you pay them pays off. It works with household expenditures, and even more so large-scale with company supply chains. Regarding expenses related to transportation, Data2Logistics has amassed a foundation of substantiation chronicling the benefits of pre-auditing freight transportation bills. This data was accumulated via the organization’s processing in excess of US$15 billion in shipping billing annually, leading to determination of the logistical and fiscal benefits of the pre-audit freight billing process to shippers, reducing cost and payment pressures by increasing information access and its visibility, through business intelligence data mining to build databases optimizing supply chain transportation.

Data2Logistics found that pre-audit of shipping transportation billing:

•             Determines accuracy consistently of the actual amounts due vs. billed

•             Identifies any errors in contracted rates and duplicates of billings

•             Recovers freight costs when transportation services are not fulfilled

•             Reduces shipper’s internal processing cost (which range from $3 to $11 per bill)

•             Ensures timely payment when coupled with a payment service

•             Provides Sarbanes-Oxley compliance assistance

•             Strengthens relationships between companies shipping products and the carriers they utilize.

Data2Logistics’ Opinion Editorial – Trucking Hours of Service Legislation, Driver’s Time is Shipper’s Money

The battle over Hours of Service which began in October 2009 continues. On January 25, 2013, American Trucking Associations (ATA) President and CEO Bill Graves asked for a three-month delay following a pending federal court decision on the regulation.

In its final rule on December 27, 2011, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) required that compliance of the 34-hour restart provision drivers use to reset their weekly clocks and resume driving be established by July 1, 2013. In this rule the FMCSA indicated that “the industry and law enforcement might need extra time to train personnel and to adjust schedules and automated systems.”

It was the hope of the ATA and others in the industry that litigation regarding this matter would be decided far enough in advance for the industry to train their staff. This impacts law enforcement agencies, truck drivers and dispatchers who need to be certain of the rules to ensure that new requirements are properly adhered to. While much work has been underway to educate those impacted, there is still much more to be done which cannot be accomplished until the pending litigation is settled. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in a series of legal challenges to the hours of service rule March 15, 2013. This will leave little time to complete training when the final court decisions are not expected before mid-May or early June of this year.

In his letter to Anne Ferro of the FMCSA, ATA’s Graves asked if the delay “will avoid potentially duplicative and unnecessary training” and “prevent confusion” if the court decision “alters in any manner the final rule.” The ATA, which opposes changes to the restart provision and other elements of the new rule, wants the court to strike the regulation and send it back to the truck safety agency.

Other groups, including Public Citizen and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, argue the rule doesn't go far enough and wants to eliminate the restart provision and cut allowable driving time.

With no change the most controversial sections of the final rule, the 34-hour restart provision takes effect this July 1^st. Graves says the new compliance date should be three months after the District of Columbia appellate court issues a ruling in ATA’s case against the rule. FMCSA is reviewing ATA’s request to postpone the effective date of the rule.

If unchanged the current ruling will have a further impact on the driver shortage and changes the economics of the trucking industry. This will impact shippers in the form of higher freight rates and longer transit times. In the long run time is money.

– Data2Logistics, http://www.data2logistics.com/

Did You Know – Auditing Before Paying Freight Shipping Bills Saves You Big

Research by Data2Logistics turned-up these supply chain shipping truisms – prepayment auditing of shipping transportation billing:

• Determines consistently the actual amounts due vs. billed
• Identifies any errors in contracted rates and duplicates of billings
• Recovers freight costs when transportation services are not fulfilled
• Reduces shipper’s internal processing cost (which range from US$3 to US$11 per bill)
• Ensures timely payment when coupled with a payment service
• Provides Sarbanes-Oxley compliance assistance.

But wait – there’s more: you’re a contact page away from the rest of the savings story.