When is the last time, as a whole, your business team has restructured or re-evaluated your LTL freight management? It is essential to stay with the trends, keep track of your shipments, and be flexible to make changes where needed.
It is pretty standard for a business to audit or re-evaluate their freight strategy on a yearly basis, but some have found benefit from assessing their shipping data more frequently. In these checks, many have found small, but significant changes that have impacted their budget and logistics in big ways.
Refer back to Past Freight Records
Keeping track of your past sales, and freight movement is vital to your business's future. If you are not keeping up with this, start now. This will help you to be able to look back and know if your past decisions have paid off, or leave room for growth and improvement. There are a few things to check out when you pair with your logistics provider that may help you save time, money or maybe even both. When you take a look at your records, look closely at your freight bills from the past. It is so easy to get in a habit of shipping one way, not really paying attention to the finer details. For example, maybe you have noticed you have depended on expedited shipping more often than necessary. Or, maybe you shipped FTL freight when you could have broken your shipment up, and shipped LTL freight and saved. It’s possible you have done just the opposite and shipped a parcel that would have been better to ship as an FTL by holding onto that shipment just a little longer. All of these examples may sound simple but have the potential to really impact your bottom line. Especially, if they are happening regularly.
Make an LTL Freight Plan
After you have given all your records a check, don’t hesitate to meet with your team, and make changes where needed. Don’t wait until the end of the year to fix the problems that you find. Don’t restrain from asking your LTL Freight carrier questions. Your logistics provider should be on your side and should be willing to make changes and tweaks where needed to make a shipping plan that works great for you both. They may even have some recommendations you have overlooked, saving you either time or costs. Be open to their suggestions, as they may offer a service you were unaware of, that can help your logistics run more efficiently. Checking your records regularly will leave less room for error, and also will keep your management sharp. The more they practice these freight strategy checks, the better they will become.
Here at American Manufacturing Solutions, we aim to offer you the very best in LTL Freight options, and also logistics as a whole. We pride ourselves on high-quality logistics and freight handling in all areas. Our team is highly skilled and diligently provides the best options for our valued customers. We make it our goal to get your goods where they need to be, providing only the very best along the way.
