10 Ways to Reduce Supply Chain Costs

Companies are under pressure to design and execute an efficient, productive, predictable supply chain, working in a business environment that is creating unprecedented challenges.  Shippers often ask us how they can save money. Most frequently this comes as a request for a lower price on shipping, but as we talk with shippers, we often find that simply lowering the transportation price is not always the best way to lower overall costs. In fact, by understanding how they use transportation and work with service providers, most companies can lower their costs beyond what they could by simply finding a lower price. What follows are the ten ways we have seen companies reduce their supply chain costs beyond a lower price for shipping:

1. Check with Your Association
CPA has partnered with YRC to bring you shipping benefits that leverage the full scale of the association, passing savings along to you. It comes as a benefit of your paid enrollment, and usually saves thousands of dollars per year on shipping. Enroll in the YRC shipping program at www.enrollhere.net to take advantage of your discount.

2. Properly Complete the Bill of Lading
The bill of lading (BOL) states exactly what is being shipped, where it's coming from, and where it's going. It is important to accurately complete the BOL to insure your shipment is not delayed or acquire extra charges. One of the important fields on a BOL is freight class. Freight classes are rough estimates of a product’s density and value. In general terms, the more dense a product, the more favorable the transportation rate. Likewise, the lower a product’s liability, the less a provider will charge you to move it. Accurately noting the shipment’s class and release value on the bill of lading ensure that you are paying the lowest rate possible for your transportation. Class a shipment too high and you’ll pay unnecessarily for product density less than what yours actually is. Class it too low, and the shipment may be subject to an inspection charge to correct the mistake. If you have any questions, contact YRC customer service to verify that you are classing your shipments correctly.

3. Time is Money…so pay the attention to your shipping that will eliminate delays
Label your shipments properly, so that the consignee (destination and recipient) is unmistakable and impossible to miss, regardless of the angle from which a dockworker is looking at your shipment. On international or cross-border shipments, make sure that the appropriate paperwork has been completed and is moving with the shipment. If you have questions on how to prepare a shipment, YRC is more than willing to help.

4. …And Money is Time
If a shipment doesn’t need to arrive the next day, don’t ship it overnight. In other words, communicate with the receiver of the shipment to understand exactly when it needs to be there, and ship based on that schedule. While you may hear, “I’ve got to have it”, your customer may mean, “I’ve got to have it, no later than Monday after next.” Knowing the urgency will help you save costs from unnecessarily over-delivering on a promise.

5. Make the Carrier Your Customer Service Agent
Using my.yrc.com, you can establish automatic email notifications for both you and your customers when shipments pass major status events, keeping everyone associated with a transaction up to date on its fulfillment. Some services also have a proactive notification capability. The carrier will monitor your shipment’s status and inform you when a possibility arises that it might not arrive on time. Finally, most carriers have an arrival notification service. It’s not likely free, but it will be less expensive than a redelivery charge for a consignee that wasn’t present to receive their shipment on the first delivery attempt. Use YRC’s free my.yrc.com and 800-610-6500 services. Available 24 hours a day, these services save you time and give you complete visibility of your shipments.

6. Package Products Properly to Avoid Damage
While damage happens from time-to-time, you dramatically reduce the likelihood that it will happen when you ensure the shipment is packaged, stacked and seated on the pallet properly. Damage from poorly packaged or stacked product is preventable, and eliminating it reduces delays in fulfillment, claims costs and administrative costs, and improves customer satisfaction for the customer who gets their product ‘factory fresh’.

7. Carpooling for Shipments
Often, your shipment will not need the space of a full trailer. Shipping less-than-truckload lets you share space with other merchandise moving to the same destination in order to reduce the cost for each shipment that rides. Even if you need your shipment to be separated from other products, innovative solutions such as YRC Sealed Divider™ allow your shipment to travel behind a secured bulkhead within a trailer, so that you still only pay for the space you use.

8. Understand Your True Supply Costs 
If your supplier adds freight costs to your orders, you can request that they bill you collect so that your discount applies to the shipments. It’s not uncommon for suppliers to up-charge their shipping costs to increase their margins on customer orders. Have the supplier run a quote without shipping costs and comparison shop using your available discount to see if you’ll benefit from this method.

9. Don’t Forget about Accessorials
Accessorials are services provided to you in addition to the linehaul transportation. These include lift gate trailers, residential delivery, limited access delivery, shipment notification, HAZMAT, and COD. You can save time and money by choosing the needed accessorials for your shipments. For example, if you’re shipping to a location without a dock, make sure that a lift gate trailer is requested. If the request is not made, redelivery fees will applied and the delivery of the shipment will be delayed.

10. Consider Consolidation
If you ship many parcel-sized shipments to the same destination, consider whether you could combine them into a single less-than-truckload shipment to save on multiple parcel shipping charges. If your service requirements to your customers allow for it, overall cost will generally go down.

These ten ways have helped many companies reduce their supply chain costs beyond just a lower price for shipping. Now that you’ve seen how to use transportation efficiently and work with service providers, you can start lowering your costs with YRC. For more information, please call 800-647-3061.