Case Study - Dock Scheduling
Automotive Distributor Ups Visibility and Reduces Labor Cost by Onboarding C3 Reservations 100% Remotely
THE CASE
The Crucial Need for Better Visibility
Rapid industry growth led this automotive distributor to find a solution to; better manage their labour resources and dock door appointments, increase on-site visibility, and streamline communication. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was one last hurdle both teams would face. This project would require a full rollout at all sites without on-site support during the Go-Live. Lastly, user training would be held 100% remotely, often in work-from-home settings. The C3 Team rolled up their sleeves and got to work.
In a Hurry?
The Challenge
1. Lack of Visibility
This wholesaler reached out recognizing that their manual processes were inefficient and a hindrance to their growth plans. Before implementing C3 Reservations, all their warehouses were managing their calendars manually with spreadsheets, without a systemic way to:
1. See what was scheduled to be received
2. Track on-time delivery performance
3. Manage load quality
Clear and automated operational visibility for their dock appointments became necessary to ensure that all stock reaches the shelves on time.
2. Resource Management
Before C3 Reservations, all communications relating to inbound shipments were manually managed by warehouse employees via email, spreadsheets, and phone calls. These burdensome tasks required a part-time scheduler at each location to schedule and track all loads, without guaranteeing homogenous process.
3. Company Growth During COVID-19
The bane of the Supply Chain’s existence in 2020-2021 was the exceptional level of industry disruption felt across the board. For this particular client, navigating through a volatile supply chain due to the pandemic posed its own set of challenges. While they were ready and willing to upgrade manual business practices, they needed a software vendor whose project team had experience working remotely to onboard the entire network in a few weeks. What they weren’t prepared for was to onboard a new system and to train their employees 100% remotely, and some from home.
The C3 Solution
VISIBILITY GAINS
All levels of management obtained visibility on daily schedules to plan their labour capacity accordingly. At booking, mandatory fields combined with an intelligent rule-based duration engine, provide the warehouse with an estimated unload time and other relevant load details.
Management was adamant about having access to reports on both the timeliness and the quality of the shipment. Standard reports include load quality metrics (including which shipments are of poor quality) and on-time reports (early, on-time, late), providing either a site-specific or global outlook on the total quality of the shipments.
AUTOMATION BENEFITS
Using a SaaS platform with configurable roles and access rights, the scheduling function was centralized. Today, three employees efficiently manage all inbound freight, allowing the staff at each location to focus on more productive tasks. According to management, the real productivity gains were eliminating emails and spreadsheets that cause errors, miscommunications, confusion, and stress across the entire network.
BEING AGILE
C3 Solutions’ Agile project management methodology combined with years of remote project management experience successfully completed the implementation with the client’s staff being spread out across the country and mostly working from home.
As witnessed with other clients, this company’s schedulers now had the flexibility, through the user-friendly SaaS C3 Reservations platform, to be as efficient working on site or remotely.
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This customer’s leadership and project team demonstrated how one could find a way to improve themselves amidst a series of challenges, including a global pandemic.
Today, management has the visibility they require to make strategic decisions and warehouse operations have naturally benefited from a smoother inbound plan.
C3 Reservations provided this client the ability to continuously adapt while not being held back by lack of visibility, late arrivals and over-use of labour resources.
"This particular project was an outstanding example of C3’s technology, resources, and best practices. Being in mid-pandemic, we were all in uncharted territory. Still, the client was prepared and organized, which allowed us to get straight to work on implementation and training."
- Audrey Lessard,
Business Specialist
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