Buying from China is nothing new for greeting card and gift maker Hallmark. But tracking the increasing number of container shipments from China to the U.S. has become more difficult and more important in recent years. To address this issue, the Kansas City-based company’s logistics organization has invested in technology that allows a clear view of everything it’s got on the Pacific.

Cathy Burrow is the international transportation and customs manager at Hallmark and says in the past, the best solution for tracking ocean container shipments from Asia was using carrier web sites. “So if you had five ocean carriers, you relied on five sources of data of varying capabilities and details,” she points out. “That wasn’t too cumbersome, but we knew there was an opportunity to streamline things and better identify delays earlier.”

The visibility issue came to a head in 2002 when the dockworkers on the West Coast went on strike, shutting ports and leaving full container ships floating in harbors up and down the coast. “We were trying to find out where everything was in a consistent format,” Burrow says.

Hallmark decided that rather than using multiple sources for shipment tracking, it needed to implement one central system with consistent information to all shipments from Asia. At first, Hallmark focused on developing a system in-house that could do the job. “But we decided there are enough companies offering tools to fill our need, so why recreate something that already exists? We were looking for something intuitive, but offered good detail and good reporting capabilities. We wanted to create our own reports and run more on-demand reports rather than just five canned monthly reports. We wanted to be able to slice and dice the data as we wanted when we wanted.”

So about a year ago, Hallmark began implementation of the Supply Chain Visibility tool from provider Management Dynamics. The implementation and training cycle for the system took “longer than we might have expected” but the end result, according to Burrow, is well worth the effort.

The single source for shipment information has made it easier for Hallmark’s logistics staffers to find shipments along the way. “In the old method, we typically didn’t know a shipment was going to be delayed until it didn’t show up at its expected stop at the expected time,” Burrow says. “Now we can be more proactive in finding out what is causing the delay and how to get around it. It might be a vessel delay, but it might also be a document issue, a port issue or a customs issue. We can focus our efforts on the containers that are hung up to keep them moving.”

The new tool also allows for much better reporting and tracking. Rather than working off a set number of reports, Burrow can pull a custom report whenever required to meet her needs.

That kind of visibility also helps other organizations beyond logistics-namely purchasing, which can better plan its buying based on improved visibility into materials flow and average transit times. As Burrow points out, there’s a world of difference between seeing a zero on a certain stock number and knowing a containerload of that item is one day out of port.

Some parts of the business are even running their own reports out of the system to meet their own specific needs. For example, the reports generated can improve both carrier performance measurement, as well as supplier performance measurement.

“We can track transit times and find out why a certain carrier or shipment is out of the acceptable range,” Burrow says. “Sometimes it’s our fault or the supplier’s issue, not the carrier’s. So we can track where the carrier’s problems are and aren’t. Before we might not have known whose fault it was and attributed it to the wrong party.”

Hallmark is considering expanding the system to other logistics modes and geographies down the road, but for now, it is focused on leveraging the full capabilities of the system by creating new reports and better leveraging the data available already.

The one piece of advice Burrow gives to other logistics organization implementing visibility and data-collection tools is, “Don’t assume it will reduce your FTEs. You can run reports and analyze things you never could before. It might not cut headcount, but it allows your organization to be more proactive and more consistent.”

Objectives of Hallmark’s inbound transportation management program:
• Create one central location for tracking critical shipment information, providing visibility to inventory in-transit and speeding the flow of goods to distribution.

• Gain event-alerting capabilities that anticipate potential inventory receipt and fulfillment issues and prompt rapid resolution before they impact availability.

• Accelerate fulfillment of “hot items” with the ability to track orders and expedite delivery.

• Significant reduction in the number of service calls by automating proactive notification of shipments and establishing a one-stop resource for trading partners.

• Real-time measurement and analysis of vendor and carrier performance using scorecards and ad-hoc reporting tools.

Source: SupplyChainer.com