We are fully aware that all our customers organize the purchasing of their transportation. But we are convinced that significant leverage is still available to optimize transport, on the basis of five main factors:

• high load factors: in other words, is optimal use made of the purchased transport capacity? And this leads us to look into the load factor on the ground, the height load factor of the tackle (pallets, rolls, etc.) and the load factor of the containers (bins, boxes, etc.),
• the reduction to a strict minimum of the total distances covered, which relies mainly on the shipper’s capacity to permanently optimize the transport plan and to adjust it to variations in volume. Another factor is the proportion of distances covered empty, which may be as high as 50%,
• the efficient use of resources and drivers: the depreciation of the vehicle accounts for a significant share of transport operators’ cost prices (12% to 14%). The best possible use must be made of the vehicle and its driver, by simply transporting goods for as long as possible, rather than waiting, loading or unloading,
• an efficient transport purchasing policy, by which the shipper pays the right price for his own or outsourced means of transport in order to durably meet his service quality and environmental targets and manage his service providers efficiently (tracking, invoicing, etc.),
• thorough monitoring of operations in order to quickly identify any slippages in terms of quality of service and keep transport costs under control.

Argon Consulting has developed its own unique expertise by building cost price models and benchmark bases that simulate the impacts of these various levers on costs and prices.

The organization of transport must answer the following questions: How can flows be managed? How can the optimized transport plan be applied to resources, costs and deadlines? Which organization and structure (reporting, headcount, location, etc.)? What are the issues involved in pre-invoicing and tracking and tracing?

Performance monitoring must cut the cost of litigation to the company by analyzing its causes and identifying avoidable costs, by keeping track of transport costs and budgets, by tracking transport performance using the right indicators, analyzing levels of customer satisfaction and implementing and monitoring the transporter productivity plans.

Finally, a supply chain program must attempt to look beyond the strict confines of the company to identify new sources of progress, both with customers (for example, by questioning the customer service policy: frequency, batch sizes, balancing by deploying Shared Replenishment Management, etc.), and with suppliers (by way of example, organizing goods pick-ups on supplier premises is a good way to prevent empty mileage). Along similar lines, the optimization of the packaging and preparation units is a significant means of optimizing the overall cost of customer deliveries (including the transport [volume, stackability] and the preparation [productivity]).

Argon Consulting works with its shipper and transporter customers on all of these issues in assignments involving:

• audit and identification of the means of improving transport purchasing,
• analysis of current performance and identification of potential means of optimization,
• definition and audit of the processes and organization of the transport units,
• assistance in selecting transport service providers,
• assistance in selecting the tools [TMS].