Case Study Spotlight: International Printing Services Corporation

Midwest Helps International Printing Services Company Achieve Logistics Excellence at Multiple Sites

"Midwest Warehouse is a really great company to work with. They are professionals who listen to our needs and quickly respond. They understand our goals and do whatever they can to help us achieve them."

- Facility Manager, International Printing Services Corporation

The Client
As an international printing, document outsourcing and logistics services provider, this innovative company integrates leading-edge technology in its global manufacturing operations to deliver fast and accurate services to clients worldwide.

The Challenge
To maintain its position as a leading provider of a full range of print and related services, this client is committed to ensuring its customers’ printed materials and products are safely stored and accurately delivered from their point of origin to their final destination. To accomplish this objective, the client established a number of strategically located and networked facilities throughout the U.S. As demand for its products and services continued to grow, the client needed to optimize its logistics operations to keep pace with increased customer demand — without sacrificing quality or driving rates upward.

The Solution
Midwest Warehouse (Midwest) was engaged in 1997 to help the client improve its logistics capabilities at one of its key operations centers. To ensure the client’s needs were fully supported, Midwest established a team dedicated exclusively to providing the client with professional, accurate, timely and cost-efficient logistics services. Over the next five months, Midwest’s team helped the client consolidate two different platforms and successfully integrate two different cultures while also implementing enhanced processes. Working together, Midwest and the client were able to:
• Increase productivity and service levels
• Improve inventory accuracy
• Expedite product delivery
• Eliminate costly incorrect shipments
• Reduce costs

Based on Midwest’s demonstrated ability to drive significant business improvements and decrease costs, the client selected Midwest as its full-time, third-party warehouse provider at the facility. In this role, Midwest was charged with handling the client’s inbound/outbound and inventory process. Soon after, the printing services company engaged Midwest to help strengthen operations at multiple sites across the country.

The Results
Midwest and the client have remained trusted partners since 1997. Over the years, Midwest has helped the printing giant dramatically streamline operations, implement best practices and increase profitability at locations in five states. “Midwest is really proactive — not only in their services, but in helping us manage operations. They are sincere in making sure we are doing things right. If something is dysfunctional, they help us identify the issue so it can be resolved quickly, which in turn reduces our operating expenses,” said the client’s facility manager. “They also played an important role in helping us meet Six Sigma project management objectives.”


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Want to know the accuracy percentages we achieved in this relationship?

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The 7 Principles of Supply Chain Management

The most requested article in the 10-year history of Supply Chain Management Review was one that appeared in our very first issue in the spring of 1997. Written by experts from the respected Logistics practice of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), “The Seven Principles of Supply Chain Management,” layed out a clear and compelling case for excellence in supply chain management. The insights provided here remain remarkably fresh ten years later.

By David L. Anderson, Frank F. Britt, and Donavon J. Favre -- Supply Chain Management Review, 4/1/2007

*Principle 1: Segment customers based on the service needs of distinct groups and adapt the supply chain to serve these segments profitably.

*Principle 2: Customize the logistics network to the service requirements and profitability of customer segments.

*Principle 3: Listen to market signals and align demand planning accordingly across the supply chain, ensuring consistent forecasts and optimal resource allocation.

*Principle 4: Differentiate product closer to the customer and speed conversion across the supply chain.

*Principle 5: Manage sources of supply strategically to reduce the total cost of owning materials and services.

*Principle 6: Develop a supply chain-wide technology strategy that supports multiple levels of decision making and gives a clear view of the flow of products, services, and information.

*Principle 7: Adopt channel-spanning performance measures to gauge collective success in reaching the end-user effectively and efficiently.

Translating Principles into Practice
Reaping the Rewards

Managers increasingly find themselves assigned the role of the rope in a very real tug of war—pulled one way by customers' mounting demands and the opposite way by the company's need for growth and profitability. Many have discovered that they can keep the rope from snapping and, in fact, achieve profitable growth by treating supply chain management as a strategic variable.

These savvy managers recognize two important things:

1.

They think about the supply chain as a whole—all the links involved in managing the flow of products, services, and information from their suppliers' suppliers to their customers' customers (that is, channel customers, such as distributors and retailers).
2.

They pursue tangible outcomes—focused on revenue growth, asset utilization, and cost.

Rejecting the traditional view of a company and its component parts as distinct functional entities, these managers realize that the real measure of success is how well activities coordinate across the supply chain to create value for customers, while increasing the profitability of every link in the chain.

Our analysis of initiatives to improve supply chain management by more than 100 manufacturers, distributors, and retailers shows many making great progress, while others fail dismally. The successful initiatives that have contributed to profitable growth share several themes. They are typically broad efforts, combining both strategic and tactical change. They also reflect a holistic approach, viewing the supply chain from end to end and orchestrating efforts so that the whole improvement achieved—in revenue, costs, and asset utilization—is greater than the sum of its parts.

Unsuccessful efforts likewise have a consistent profile. They tend to be functionally defined and narrowly focused, and they lack sustaining infrastructure. Uncoordinated change activity erupts in every department and function and puts the company in grave danger of “dying the death of a thousand initiatives.” The source of failure is seldom management's difficulty identifying what needs fixing. The issue is determining how to develop and execute a supply chain transformation plan that can move multiple, complex operating entities (both internal and external) in the same direction.

To view the rest of the article, please click here.


For more information on how Midwest Warehouse and meet your supply chain needs, please visit our website or our Chicago third party logistics, food distribution and paper converting machine company pages.

Vote Midwest Warehouse for Inbound Logistics' Top 3PL!!

Vote Now for Midwest Warehouse & Distribution!

From Inbound Logistic's 3PL Excellence Survey's webpage:

“Each year, in its July issue, Inbound Logistics publishes the most definitive resource on third-party logistics and the outsourced logistics market. If you are already a subscriber, you know that we ask our readers which third-party logistics companies provide excellent service, and publish the results. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can get a list of this year's Excellence Survey winners, as well as the Top 100 third-party companies in the world, by checking the box below.

We're now conducting next year's 3PL Excellence Survey. The results will be presented in the July 2010 3PL issue. Give us your input and we'll express our appreciation by entering you in a drawing for a free 18-carat gold Parker pen, which includes a coupon for free engraving."

Midwest's Services

For best-in-class logistics services, check us out at Midwest Warehouse and Distribution System. We provide a wide range of logistics offerings that are available as stand-alone services or bundled together as an full specturm solution. We understand your supply chain needs. With our friendly, experienced staff that puts people first, we are able to provide unbeatable service and deliver exceptional results that save time, money and stress.

Services:

• Chicago Warehousing
• Transportation
• Paper Converting Machine Company

Outsourcing and Respect

The idea of outsourcing often comes about when the CEO, controller, or another member of senior management reads an article—or has been speaking with a 3PL—about saving a minimum of 10 percent or more of their logistics costs by turning to a third party. However, I've found that these “savings opportunities” are often purely theoretical and are only supported by management due to their lack of logistics knowledge or their lack of confidence in the ability of its logistics team to efficiently manage its processes.


Of course, there are other times when the outsourcing conversation is sparked by the urgent need to reduce headcount.

The transportation teams that feel especially threatened are those that lack the experience, leadership, talent, knowledge, process excellence, and contingency strategies to guide their companies through today's global market. They often fail to anticipate and prepare themselves for tomorrow's challenges. And it often takes just one unpleasant and costly surprise to jumpstart the outsourcing movement in teams like these.

When I hear transportation leaders tell me that their companies keep reminding them that they're just another cost center, I tell them that it's their fault that management doesn't see them as a value-add to the organization. This tends to lead into the question: How do I get some respect?

The answer is simple. It's all about education and managing expectations—neither of which start in the middle of a crisis. Earning respect starts with your knowledge and command of the marketplace and your transportation governance, and it ends with programs that you have created to educate senior management and other organizations on a regular basis. As a quick reminder, I define transportation governance as “the direction and control associated with creation, administration, oversight, and enforcement of your company and supply chain's policies, regulations, and procedures related to the legal, safe, efficient, and service-effective movement of freight it controls either directly or indirectly.”

Transportation governance has both direct and indirect aspects. Direct governance includes: your carrier criteria and operating protocol/guidelines; selection and management of your carrier base; carrier due diligence evaluations, contract models and supporting documents; process with defined/flows/inputs-outputs; metrics and measures and dashboards; carrier performance reviews and process improvements; a carrier council to streamline processes and improve carrier and company productivity; greenfield projects and process improvements; and, of course, audits and benchmarking. Indirect governance, on the other hand, includes your command of the transportation industry including regulatory and political issues as well as a comparison of your approach to industry challenges versus that of your peers.

Read the rest of the logisticsmgmt.com article here.

New Study Highlights Role of Third-Party Logistics Providers in Helping Shippers Adapt to Economic Challenges

The fourteenth Annual Third Party Logistics (3PL) Study examining the current global market for logistics outsourcing was recently released. The study surveyed shippers and logistics service providers in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Key findings included:

* The economic downturn has created significant challenges for both shippers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) – 82% of shippers are employing cost-cutting tactics and 60% are rethinking their supply chains and relationships with 3PLs
* 88% of shippers feel that IT-based logistics services are important, but only 42% are satisfied with the capabilities of their provider – as a result of this IT capability gap, shipper respondents reported a lack of the key performance indicators, alerts and visibility required for an adaptive supply chain and 3PLs reported similar difficulties in getting the data and commitment they need from shippers
* There are significant differences between how 3PLs evaluate their role in the supply chain and how they are viewed by shippers – 59% of shippers feel their use of 3PLs has a positive effect on customer service compared to 88% of 3PL respondents
* Shipper respondents devote an average of between 47% (in North America) and 66% (in Europe) of their total logistics expenditures to outsourcing and this is expected to increase in the next five years.

“Shipper-3PL relationships are being impacted significantly by the prevailing uncertainty and economic volatility in global markets,” said Dr. C. John Langley Jr., Professor of Supply Chain Management, Georgia Institute of Technology. “It is very important for 3PLs to mitigate or reduce any financial risk or service level impact that this may cause.”

Economic uncertainty and the use of 3PLs
Economic volatility has challenged shippers and 3PLs alike to contend with factors such as unpredictable demand, instability in fuel costs and currency valuation, and excess inventory. In response, not only are shippers attempting to cut costs, 77% are also seeking to improve forecasting and inventory management.

Cost reduction and improved reliability in services are the main factors likely to increase shipper respondents’ use of 3PLs. This includes converting fixed to variable costs (59%), expanding to new markets or offering new products (56%), and restructuring the supply chain network to improve financial performance (48%).

Read the rest of the mhia.org article here.

Midwest Warehouse - Northlake creates 50,000 Square Feet of Customs Bonded Space

Northlake, IL (August 1, 2009) – Due to customer demands Midwest Warehouse & Distribution is pleased to announce the creation of 50,000 square feet of customs bonded space in our Northlake, IL. facility. This value added service will no doubt grow due to the current economy and the location of the Northlake facility in relation to the Chicago rail ramps. Midwest Warehouse currently operates 4.5 million square feet of warehouse space in 18 facilities throughout the US with over 2.7 million square feet in the Chicago area.