Distribution management refers to the process of overseeing the movement of goods from supplier or manufacturer to point of sale. It is an overarching function that ties into numerous logistic activities and processes. Alignment to warehousing, inventory, packing and supply chain structures and initiatives is vital to achieve successes.

Effective management of the entire distribution process is critical to a company's financial success and corporate longevity.

Unity through alignment is key.

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Our Distribution service offering includes: -

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Network Design / Modelling

Network Design

Facility location - Center of Gravity, the number of facilities, fleet mix, transportation mode and cost

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Cost to Serve Models

An approach that will allow you to identify the total cost of servicing your customers at a customer and product level. This allows the Business to provide appropriate levels of service to its customers to achieve its business goals.

It is important because many businesses today, maybe 50-60% still adopt a one size fits all service policy, that under services some customers and over services other customers and that drives high logistics costs.

One of the main focus areas in a cost to serve exercise is to appropriately classify customers and consider strategy on servicing customers in the tail of contribution to margin. Normal Pareto principles apply when analyzing customer performance.

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Fleet Scoping

In business this function has evolved and has become vital for any business who wants to keep it's operations running efficiently, remaining competitive in the marketplace and meeting their budget goals..

Fleet scoping / management involves a series of diverse tasks for businesses who rely on transportation, aimed at controlling costs, productivity, efficiency and risks in vehicle acquisition, fuel management and compliance. 

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Consideration given to: -

• Vehicle Acquisition - Rent or Buy

• Design and Manage Fuel Programs

• Design and Manage Maintenance

• Support corporate safety (accident negligence can result in brand damage)

• Vehicle Tracking

• Compliance, regulations.

• Fleet budget (careful analysis and bench-marking within industry)

• Policy: fleet policies to attain budget and compliance goals

• Security: Evaluating security requirements

• Technology:-

  • Data security and privacy.

  • Telematics data can help predict mechanical failure,

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Territory balancing and route optimization 

This is a critical component going hand in hand with route optimization. While route optimization will focus on minimizing kilometers traveled, territory balancing will consider the mix of customer on the route in a geographical area. The key is to divide large geographical areas in to smaller areas to optimally service customer requirements while balancing the workload across all areas of the business. Sub optimal territories could be the root cause for uneven flow in the warehouse due to volumes and areas assigned to specific days.

Typically an exercise will consider the following:

• Master routes of variable routing.

• Service day assignments keeping in mind inventory availability, customer storage capacity and product shelf life.

• Customer to Distribution Center assignment.

• Local routes vs country routes.

• Optimize and align sales representatives calling cycles - very often a mismatch in that sales representatives are taking orders the day after delivery.

• Number of stops on a route, delivery windows and cycle times at the back door.

• Vehicle restrictions i.e. only deliver with smaller vehicles due to 'real life', space constraints in the receiving areas.

• Route profitability - too often it is actually costing the business money on a route with no return on this "investment"

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Contact us and start the conversation, to a optimized and cost effective journey in the Distribution area of your business.