|
Trainer PR Writing Sample
 E-mail this page  Printer-friendly page
This sample was written by JMB Communications for Trainer PR, a West Coast agency.
Is Alive & Well in Connecticut
Hamden, Connecticut-based USCO Logistics markets a complete suite of supply-chain services and capabilities to a blue-chip customer base ranging from retail to high technology to pharmaceuticals, utilizing 15 million square feet of distribution center space throughout North America. Its customers include Nortel Networks, Sun Microsystems, Roche, Wal-Mart, JC Penney, and others. A subsidiary of Swiss-based Kuehne & Nagel, USCO is one of the world’s leading global logistics service providers.
To enhance its logistics offerings, USCO recently announced that it is adopting Shelton Connecticut-based G-Log’s Global Command and Control Center™ (GC3™) logistics and transportation software. USCO says it was attracted to the G-Log product because GC3 combines supply chain visibility and execution functionality in an integrated architecture, enabling USCO to automate and manage all aspects of the logistics lifecycle. USCO expects to reduce transportation costs, increase operational efficiency, and enable new collaborative business processes for its Fortune 500 customers as well as for small-to-medium sized enterprises.
Supply Chain Collaboration offers Pivotal Advantages
Companies partnering in the manufacturing and distribution of new products must be able to communicate instantly, at all levels, and they must have visibility upstream into the supply chain to ensure on-time deliveries throughout the manufacturing / distribution product lifecycle. In fact, collaboration is recognized as a critical ingredient for corporate success as progressive companies negotiate supply-chain / distribution partnerships with growing numbers of global vendor/partners throughout a product’s lifecycle. USCO will use GC3 to help customers optimize shipments across the supply chain, around the world.
Despite the hoopla about collaboration, is it all that important? Analysts think so.
“Progressive logistics enterprises have expressed a clear desire to use technology and collaborative business processes to elevate transportation from an operational afterthought into a strategic competency by managing the transportation function at the network level,” said Jeff Woods, senior analyst for Gartner. “The technologies and business processes enabling the synchronization of transportation activity across business units, modes, and geographies are beginning to be validated in the real world, and the operational cost reductions are well understood and anxiously embraced.”
USCO Logistics president and CEO Robert R. Auray, Jr. agrees. “With customers demanding higher levels of business collaboration, we wanted to provide a cost-effective solution for improving our supply chain visibility, management and execution capabilities,” he says. “G-Log’s architecture enables us to reduce our total cost of ownership, generate additional business, process more shipments, and provide enhanced customer service. That’s a competitive advantage customers want.”
G-Log’s GC3 software enables multiple users -- buyers, vendors, carriers, and companies like USCO -- to share a single business process flow that includes order creation, order release, shipment creation, shipment planning, and shipment execution. GC3 enables USCO to give its customers complete visibility into their entire realm of logistics processes. GC3 combines planning, visibility, and execution in one system, accessible to all partners, reducing the need for time-consuming manual tasks and reducing freight costs for all concerned, Auray says.
USCO’s Objectives
Harry Drajpuch, USCO Executive Vice President and General Manager for Order Management and Delivery Solutions, describes USCO’s objectives at the beginning of its search process as “fairly simple.”
“We wanted to have a modern, up-to-date supply chain optimization and visibility tool to give current and future customers the absolute maximum value for their products in the supply chain -- from purchasing to delivery to end users,” he says.
“We are a non-asset based third-party provider,” Drajpuch continues. “There are businesses out there that offer capacity and equipment, and there are others that know how to move product very well. We wanted a tool that would enable us to have visibility into and to completely manage the process across all modes, whether it’s small parcels, less-than-truckload quantities, full truckloads, or air. We wanted a tool that would let us leverage the methodologies that are in the field today so we can deliver service consistent with customer needs for speed and cost. The bottom line is that we wanted a quality product that gives our customers visibility to know exactly where their products are throughout the supply chain.”
Every day, collaborating companies relate to their supply chains from many perspectives. USCO wanted to be able to analyze the best mode of transportation, inbound or outbound, for a particular shipment, focusing on each customer’s specific requirements. In its highly competitive market, USCO felt that customer service must be maintained at the levels end-users expect -- but customers’ bottom-line cost for those services must stay lean enough to help them compete, not drown them in red ink. “Some companies need to know where their products are in the supply chain. We need to enable all our customers to learn where all their products are in the supply chain, irrespective of who is carrying or moving them.”
The Selection Process
USCO researched the marketplace for global providers for its sought-after “supply chain optimization and visibility tool.” Initially, the list totaled six companies. “Our analytical process included about 600 grading points,” Drajpuch recounts. USCO intensively interviewed all the candidates according to a standard process it developed just for that purpose, usually asking the companies to provide more information after each interview. Its process took almost a year, and the final selection was G-Log based to a significant extent upon its grading.
But there were other reasons USCO picked G-Log. Drajpuch says that the G-Log software was architected for the Web, for example. “That makes it a powerful, collaborative tool. Business partners, whether they provide services or buy from us, can get secure collaborative access to their respective supply chains without requiring any software infrastructure. With Web access, they can deal with any aspect of the logistics process even if they’re technologically challenged.”
Drajpuch characterizes GC3 as a supply chain integration tool. “One of our key markets is retail. Buyers always need to know where their product is even before it has shipped. GC3 gets buyers into the very beginning of the supply chain where they can enter their purchase orders and track them by line item with total visibility. From inception, all the players are involved that need to be involved -- manufacturers, carriers, buyers, and end-users – and all know where their product is at any moment in the process.”
Implementation
USCO is now implementing G-Log GC3 with a major client, Riverwood International of Marietta, Georgia, a top-tier supplier of packaging materials to the US beer, soft drink, and food industry.
“G-Log is working side by side with us in the implementation,” Drajpuch says. “We’re defining business requirements not just for this initial customer, but for other customers as well. As a result, going forward we expect to be in a position to rapidly deploy this solution with customers everywhere. G-Log is keenly aware of our business requirements and has been extremely responsive. They are very sensitive to the financial aspects of this.”
In addition to obtaining real-time supply chain visibility information through USCO’s use of GC3, USCO’s customers will be able to proactively react to unexpected supply chain events, such as shipment delays, and will be able to manage by exception, to help ensure that every shipment is delivered optimally.
“The G-Log based system,” USCO’s Robert Auray says, “offers us a reliable supply chain, better inventory management for the retailer and the supplier, better equipment utilization for the transportation carrier, and more efficient transportation management.”
The G-Log logistics platform manages multi-modal, multi-leg, and multi-enterprise shipment planning and execution in an integrated solution. Consequently, companies that use G-Log to manage their logistics operations can easily collaborate with suppliers, customers, other divisions, and third parties to improve operations, performance, and ROI.
USCO’s Harry Drajpuch concludes, “We needed to get one of our biggest customer technologically enabled so they can compete more effectively in their marketplace. We want to be able to bring additional customers on not just with basic functionality, but also with a tool that works very well and which is easily customized to the needs of specific customers. We've got it, right here in Connecticut.”
* * *
All trademarks used in these articles are the property of their respective owners.
Copyright, © G-Log, 2002. Reprinted with permission by JMB Communications.
We've grouped these samples by
type; just click what you want to see. Thanks again for taking
the time to visit us. Note: to see entire websites we've
produced, click HERE
E-mail this page Printer-friendly page
|
