EQI Earns Supplier of the Year Recognition for Annual Freight Savings

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Challenge

One of the world’s leading lift truck manufacturers has long relied on EQI for on-time delivery of high-quality counterweights. Through collaborative dialogue, the partners found a more effective means of distribution, saving the publicly traded Fortune 500 company more than $500,000 annually.

Tailored Solution

The EQI team is always looking for ways to add value and reduce costs for its customers. Since the program’s launch more than 10 years ago, the counterweights had been received and inventoried in Chesapeake, Virginia, and distributed via flatbed truck to one of the customer’s manufacturing facilities in central Kentucky. Even though the program was well-established and continued to deliver excellent results, the EQI account manager proactively examined the logistics part of the program looking for potential cost savings.

EQI developed and quoted a cost-savings plan to receive containers and manage inventory at a Cincinnati warehouse and ship inventory via flatbed truck to the Kentucky facility.

A few years later, EQI analyzed the customer’s warehousing and fulfillment costs, and proposed opening an EQI-managed warehouse just a few miles from the manufacturer’s Kentucky facility.  This facility allows the OEM to decrease inventory while increasing overall order flexibility.

Results

  • The new logistics program enabled EQI to provide the customer with $500,000 in annual savings (and even greater annual savings as shipments increased in subsequent years).

  • EQI earned the OEM’s coveted Supplier of the Year award in recognition of the substantial savings.

  • EQI staff are onsite at the warehouse, able to deliver the right part at the right time.

  • Thanks to the quick response time provided by the EQI warehouse, the customer is able to reduce working capital by keeping less inventory on hand.

  • The opening of the EQI warehouse coincided with increased demand that caused annual shipments to more than double. EQI had no trouble providing for the increased capacity, which resulted in the customer yielding even higher-than-forecasted warehousing and fulfillment savings of $200,000-$300,000 annually.

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Find out how EQI can simplify your supply chain. Contact David Redeker to schedule a no-cost, 360º Review.

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