A few weeks ago at the Descartes Evolution 2018 User Conference, I had the opportunity to interview William Wehrle, Director of Supply Chain at BASF, and David Bazzetta, Business Advisor – Process Optimization at BASF, about the importance and value of having real-time freight visibility.
Before BASF implemented the Descartes MacroPoint solution, “more often than not, we had no visibility into shipments that were delayed,” explained Wehrle. “Our way of finding out was often an angry customer calling to ask, ‘Where’s my shipment?’ It got to the point where we were disgusted with the daily phone calls from customer care, angry phone calls from the business team because it happened again, the truck didn’t show up when expected. We decided we needed to do something about it.”
“When you think about it, we’re living in the age of Amazon.com,” Bazzetta added, “so it perplexed us to understand why we could receive an email notification that a package was on our porch but we couldn’t have [the same visibility and notification] when a shipment of chemicals was being delivered to a customer.”
What were some of the key capabilities BASF was looking for in a real-time freight visibility solution? What factors led them to select Descartes MacroPoint as a partner? How did they roll out the solution with their carriers?
Wehrle and Bazzetta address those questions and more in this short 9-minute video, so I encourage you to watch it get all the details and insights.
Benefits of Real-Time Freight Visibility
What about the value BASF is achieving by having real-time freight visibility? In addition to improved customer satisfaction, Wehrle shared these examples:
The data we’re getting has been hugely successful. It allows us to analyze the in and out times at our shipping locations as well as our customer locations. We’ve embarked on a demurrage project to look at where we’re having inefficiencies in our loading and delivery processes causing us to waste a truck driver’s time. We’re also using the data to manage our carriers. By having actual minute-by-minute arrival times for our carriers, we’re able to accurately measure their on-time delivery performance, see which carriers are performing well and which ones aren’t, and as a result we’ve awarded more business to those superior-performing carriers.
Again, watch the full video interview for additional insights and advice from William and David, including their advice for companies that are looking to evaluate and implement a real-time freight visibility solution. Then post a question or comment and share your perspective on this topic!
For related commentary, see On-Time In-Full (OTIF) and the Growing Demand for Real-Time Freight Visibility
