Dépêches

Chainalytics Announces Continued Growth of Transportation Benchmarking

Dépèche transmise le 29 avril 2009 par Business Wire

Chainalytics Announces Continued Growth of Transportation Benchmarking

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Chainalytics LLC, a supply chain services firm specializing in applying analytics to enhance fact-based decisions in strategic and tactical supply chain planning, announced today the successful growth of its Model-Based Benchmarking Consortium (MBBC) and results of the latest model-based benchmark for transportation at its latest Summit. The MBBC Summit is an open forum where members can meet with peers across all industries to discuss market events and techniques for improving processes, rates, and carrier relationships.

In 2003, Chainalytics created the MBBC, a group of shipper companies that use the model-based benchmark to better understand how they are performing in the market. Since then, the consortium has grown 800% to 62 members with over $13 billion in transportation spend -- roughly 4% of the U.S. for-hire truckload market. Chainalytics uses an econometric modeling approach to transportation benchmarking, enabling the members to confidentially compare their unique transportation costs against the broader market, gain insight into the business practices that drive transportation costs, and assist them in evaluating the impact of alternative strategies such as deploying a dedicated fleet.

The MBBC consortium helps its members keep the pulse on the very dynamic transportation market. When companies simply measure their year-to-year progress, they are not considering market dynamics. Simply improving over last year may not be enough if the entire market is down. “By being a member of the MBBC, we saw we were paying way above our peers,” said a transportation executive of a multi-billion retailer. “Our favorite thing about being a member is that carriers give us their best-effort rates first.”

As well as detailed reports that show lane-level market performance, consortium members also receive analytical tools to assist them in day-to-day operations. MBBC Estimators help members analyze lanes on which they do not currently operate and can highlight the competitive rate for any origin-destination pair.

“The rate estimator was really great for us as it sped up a process that normally takes us weeks to do,” said Stan Brooks, Director of Transportation at Mohawk Industries. “Being a member was the key to helping us address the lanes with the largest percent over market. This resulted in an annual rate reduction of $100,000 with a carrier that held 14 of our top 20 worst lanes.”

The most recent model analyzed over 11.5 million loads and over $13 billion in transportation spend – an 11% growth over the previous model. Since inception, membership has grown from 7 members to 62 members, including companies ranging from over $1 billion in freight to those shipping under $50 million annually. The recent model included benchmarks for truckload dry van, refrigerated, flatbed and intermodal covering the US, Canada, and in and out of Mexico. Chainalytics continues to expand the geographic scope of its services which now includes a recently completed model for truckload service in India and will continue to grow the existing benchmarking consortiums of global ocean container services and US-Less-than-truckload (LTL) freight. In addition, MBBC will continue to evaluate management practices' impact on rates, such as fuel surcharge program structure, accessorial programs, lane definition, and carrier performance metrics. Another recent extension of the consortium, MBBC Lane Matching, is helping members collaborate across companies to reduce empty miles and improve asset utilization.

"Members once had to sell senior management on the concept of benchmarking,” said Gary Girotti, Vice President Transportation Practice at Chainalytics. “In today’s economic climate, benchmarking initiatives are being endorsed in the corner office. The MBBC is helping our members positively impact carrier relations, sustainability, and forecasting, while ultimately reducing costs. It’s no longer lip-service.”

About Chainalytics

Chainalytics is a professional services firm that enhances competitive advantage and shareholder value through optimized supply chain strategies. Chainalytics' fact-based decision making approach improves and innovates our clients' strategies and tactics with particular emphasis on supply chain design, transportation strategies, inventory strategies, and product and customer portfolio planning. Offered as both project-based and managed services, this approach is achieved via a unique combination of domain expertise, resilient methodologies, and exclusive research and content - all supported by the world's most advanced decision sciences tools and techniques. Chainalytics targets enterprises with a high degree of complexity created by their unique combinations of scale, change and geography. With offices in North America and Asia, Chainalytics serves companies globally in a borderless fashion. Learn more at www.chainalytics.com.