Whatever your industry

A new kiosk technology was launched at car dealerships that significantly improved the car-buying experience. However, during the launch, the kiosk manufacturer encountered major problems, including freight not being delivered as scheduled, miscoordination between installation crews and dealership staff, and the need for three dedicated project managers who still were failing to keep the project on time or on budget.

The manufacturer brought in HDL to determine the optimal solution. As a result, HDL took over the entire project. For example, scheduling inbound transportation to ensure on-time delivery and coordinating with dealerships so that our national network of I.T. and electrical installation partners arrived at precisely the right time for a smooth install and meeting all ‘go live’ deadlines.

The manufacturer was able to repurpose their team members to other tasks and the project ended with happy dealerships and a project that achieved on-time and on-budget goals. In a post-audit of the project, the manufacturer realized that trying to manage complex tasks including multiple stakeholders and outside vendors was not their core competency. They have since hired HDL for other projects of this type.

One of the largest U.S. bakeries received a large order for national distribution. Unfortunately, a key supplier was unable to deliver an essential ingredient due to a supply shortage. The bakery found an alternate supplier who had the necessary ingredient, but the problem was that 40,000 lbs. of the ingredient needed to arrive at 25 satellite bakeries no later than 6:00 am Saturday morning. HDL was contacted at 2:00 pm Thursday afternoon, just 40 hours prior to the nationwide delivery deadline.

To make matters worse, the alternate supplier was located in a remote location 100 miles north of St. Louis, and the ingredient would not be ready for pickup until 6:00 pm. And, the satellite bakeries were located coast to coast with many in outlying areas, and the ingredient wasn’t packed in a way that allowed air freight.

HDL sprung into action, creating a project plan and schedule, and then immediately putting it into action. We arranged for two large trucks to pick up the ingredient at 6:00 pm and immediately return to St. Louis where one truckload was then separated and distributed to dedicated smaller trucks which were all en route by 11:00 pm. The second truckload was sent to a facility that repackaged the ingredient to enable air shipment which was completed by 1:30 am Friday and delivered for air freight shipments by 6:00 am that same morning.

22 of the 25 satellite bakeries received the ingredient that same day, Friday, a day ahead of the deadline. The remaining three bakeries received their shipments before the 6:00 am Saturday goal. HDL’s client completed the order and preserved their contractual arrangement with the major food retailer.

A prominent manufacturer of point-of-sale signage needed to get their new design to 89 stores of a major US retailer in time for the end-of-year Holiday. The stores had no room to hold the signage so they needed to be delivered on the day workers were scheduled to install them. The project was made more complex by the production being divided between two manufacturing plants on opposite sides of the country, both of which were encountering a shortage of necessary raw materials. Final complications included a non-standard shipping pallet that prevented the use of certain trucking networks and that many of the final destinations were extremely remote.

We created a master plan that had built-in flexibility to accommodate whichever manufacturing location secured raw materials first, while also anticipating how the installation dates provided by the retailer would change. We chose to use dedicated routes for consolidation to eliminate handling and damage. We also overpacked 18 delivery packages of the 89 to enable special shipment outside of the dedicated routes when it became necessary due to last-minute changes by the manufacturer.

Even though the schedule had to change eight times due to raw material shortages and installer rescheduling, HDL accomplished having all 89 locations receiving their deliveries on the installation date, with zero damage, while coming in 37% under the initial budget.

HDL was asked to fix a broken process being used to refresh the look of a chain of convenience stores. The existing process sent oversize and less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments to rented PODS outside convenience store locations. This took up valuable parking capacity, incurred exorbitant rental fees, prevented inventory confirmation prior to installation day, and resulted in damage from multiple carriers delivering to the PODS.

HDL created a master plan to address all these issues starting with consolidating all shipments into full truckload quantities which were then delivered to local warehousing, eliminating the need for the PODS. This allowed the manufacturer to reduce the packaging previously required for LTL shipments. It also enabled the creation of a central spare parts pool instead of including extra parts on every shipment. Installation day delivery was optimized using local trucks with lift gates and multiple workers.

By HDL coordinating this plan with all store managers, we were able to have shipments delivered at the optimal time, minimizing disruption to store operations. Our local last-mile delivery strategy also reduced the man-hours required by the installation teams, lowering costs and improving their productivity. The end result was a 22% reduction in packaging and transportation costs, a 12% reduction in installation labor costs, and a 97% reduction in damaged products—all with 100% on-time deliveries which enabled our client to land an additional 300 locations. Finally, all activity was visible to stakeholders through HDL’s online portal including scheduling, inventory on hand, communications with store personnel, and real time photos of delivered products once unpacked.

Every company that relies on demonstration products to close potential customers deals has the same problem keeping track of limited demo product inventory on spreadsheets shared between multiple stakeholders. This type of process often also requires multiple layers of authorizations to access and allocate demo inventory towards different sales channels and relies on the spreadsheet owner to validate inventory availability for any particular sales event. It’s an all-manual mess with too many fingers in the pie.

HDL took our decades of expertise and developed a better way. We created our Custom Logistics Cloud™ that is accessible by all approved project stakeholders through an online portal. The Custom Logistics Cloud tracks all demo inventory by part number, serial number, or any other label. Inventory allocation and scheduling is rules-based as set by the program manager and can include multi-layer approvals. Approved client stakeholders can make queries such as ‘inventory availability by event date’ and then instantly allocate it for their specific event, plus much, much more. The Custom Logistics Cloud incorporates a real time dashboard with key performance indicators and customizable reports. Each HDL client defines their own project workflow depending on the rules and approvals they set. Training materials are available to quickly teach users how to get the most out of the system.

But any partner-provided tool is only as good as how easy it is to use and how well it is supported. HDL has a dedicated team who works exclusively on demos and events to help our clients avoid issues and eliminate risk for their demo programs. Our clients have been able to reduce project management headcount because of having accurate, up-to-the-minute information on demo inventory whereabouts and future commitments. This enables highly efficient scheduling and improved program ROI.

A large national AV integrator brought in HDL for a complex installation as part of a complete refresh for the office of a Chicago based corporation that spanned multiple rooms on four floors (36-39) in a high rise in downtown Chicago. The challenges comprised of a staged installation over a two-weeks. Beyond the window of time, there was no room to store products on-site other than what was being installed each day. Further, upon a site survey, we determined that the 98-inch monitors would not fit into the elevators. Additionally, multiple vendors shipped various items, requiring further advanced logistic planning—this required consolidation in a local market warehouse along with server racks that were configured locally. Also, the building required $5 million in liability coverage, and the underground docking area had limitations on truck heights. To further complicate the project, building management limited our access to around 4:00 am to minimize disruption to tenants.

HDL established a Chicago area warehouse location to receive inbound shipments from vendors and the server racks. We coordinated with the integrator to create a schedule for what product needed to arrive on each day. We then identified and marked each piece based on the room to be delivered. Next, our team placed each piece in its specified room unpacked the product, ensuring easy access for the installation crews. We also removed all debris. The project required four men at 04:00 am each day except the days the oversize monitors were delivered which required six. We took the monitors up the stairs with a crawler.

The result was eight on-time deliveries, zero damage to the product or building, and one very satisfied occupant.