A major supplier to automotive OEMs cannot afford unreliable delivery of parts. It especially can’t afford a situation in which delivery of parts is unreliable and the explanations make no sense.
That was the situation facing a Bestway client earlier this year. The client was sourcing critical parts from Mexico. And while the parts were high-quality and priced reasonably, this did the client no good if the OEM couldn’t get them when expected. Worse, the client’s contract with the OEM called for heavy fines if it was responsible for supply issues that disrupted production schedules.
On one occasion, the client had resorted to the use of an emergency air charter, which got the job done but cost the client more than $400,000. For a single shipment.
That couldn’t be the permanent solution.
So the client came to Bestway. Ryan Shannon, head of North America services at Bestway, got his team on it right away.
“The cost for our client of the delay in the shipments way outweighs the cost of shipping from Mexico to the United States,” Ryan said. “So this needed to be expedited, and Bestway has the capacity to expedite via air charter, sprinter van or dry van. We’re a 24/7 operation and we thrive in environments like this with our phone ringing.”
Bestway sprung into action and made several moves immediately. It started with the securing of a highly reliable, single-source carrier that has plenty of experience in the high-risk regions of Mexico.
Next, Ryan and his team made sure to apply 24/7 visibility tools with provided information on real-time shipment locations, status updates and transit forecasts. There would be no more vague explanations from a carrier that wasn’t getting the job done. The right carrier was on the job, and the visibility tools answered the questions before they even needed to be asked.
Finally, to ensure seamless door-to-door execution, Bestway structured its operations team for uninterrupted support. It didn’t matter when – nights, weekends, U.S. holidays not observed in Mexico – the team was going to be on top of things at all times for this client.
Bestway also took over as U.S. customs broker, and found an excellent partner to act as customs broker on the Mexican side where necessary.
The result?
You can’t do better than 100 percent improvement, and that’s exactly what Bestway produced in this situation. Since Bestway took over the shipping of this supplier’s parts, the client has seen 100 percent improvement in reliability and service performance – with consistent rapid movement across all freight types, including expedited, scheduled and last-minute.
And the improvement has saved the client tens of millions of dollars in potential OEM fines and the use of emergency air charters.
“What they’re saving is paying for these moves many times over,” Ryan said. “We’re glad they came to us because our relationships told us exactly which carrier would be able to eliminate this problem for them – and we’ve been able to manage the process to keep the parts flowing rapidly and consistently. Problem solved.”
