Trainer PR Writing Sample
This sample was written by JMB Communications for Trainer PR, a West Coast agency.
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.”
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All trademarks used in these articles are the property of their respective owners.
Copyright, © G-Log, 2002. Reprinted with permission by JMB Communications.
Posted November 27, 2002