2019 Alliance Awards: Time to share your collaboration success

In those years, freight market realities became increasingly more challenging to manage. So, we’ve worked to share case studies that not only exhibit the benefits of traditional relationship building, but also illustrate the evolving role that technology has played in shortening the distances between partners—no matter the geographies.

In fact, we believe in the power of modern-day collaboration so strongly that we’ve partnered with SMC3 over the past three years to put the spotlight on real-world supply chain collaboration success stories in an effort to inspire more shippers to open their worlds and discover the advantages.

We call it The Alliance Awards—a program that Logistics Management (LM) and SMC3 designed to recognize the ways in which shippers and their service providers are working together to overcome challenges to the critical elements of their unique supply chain operations. In fact, it is the only program in the industry that celebrates supply chain collaboration at the highest level. We recognized the three 2018 Alliance Award winning teams on the stage at SMC3’s Jump Start conference earlier this year—and we’re showcasing one of those winners on our cover this month.

Winning examples of collaboration in 2018 included how Michelin worked with less-than-truckload (LTL) partner Averitt Express to integrate status messages from the carrier’s internal tracking system with the FourKites platform using existing APIs. Michelin now tracks over 4,000 LTL loads per month across multiple different carriers and brokerages, has greatly reduced costs, and now offers customers a personalized, real-time window into their shipments.

The second 2018 success story told how Wayne Farms, the sixth largest vertically-integrated producer and processor of poultry in the United States, tackled its ongoing capacity issue by developing a more strategic relationship with its third-party logistics (3PL) provider C.H. Robinson and RE Garrison, a multi-faceted truckload (TL) carrier based in Vinemont, Ala. By working together to leverage C.H. Robinson’s technology, not only is RE Garrison delivering 96.5% on-time this year, but the carrier is now also offering a number of new services to Wayne Farms including dedicated, around-the-clock operational staff to support any last-minute demands or peaks.

This month, contributing editor John Schulz tells the third winning story about how Frios, a gourmet popsicle maker based in steamy Gadson, Ala., created a collaborative cold chain solution in conjunction with motor carrier partner Averitt and shipping container provider Cold Box, reducing operations times for shipping by 75% while saving $150,000 annually on transportation costs.

Schulz:

“What struck me most about the Frios story was how quickly transportation and logistics breakthroughs can transform an idea—homemade popsicles—into a multi-million dollar business in a few years. It simply could not have taken off without the technology of Cold Box and the collaboration with their carrier.”

Like many so many of our readers, we like to shed the theoretical and share what collaboration looks like and acts like more literally in the real world. Do you have a collaboration success story to share?

LM and SMC3 have opened up the 2019 Alliance Awards registration page, and we’d love to hear about your supply chain achievements—and who knows, maybe you’ll be gracing our cover next year.