Freight Bill Pre-Audit

Century, Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores®, and Acuitive Solutions LLC formed a partnership in early 2007. The objective of the collaboration was to run all Jo-Ann freight bills through a pre-audit process to verify the charges prior to remittance. Acuitive maintains Jo-Ann’s contracted rates and terms in its system. The auditing process initiates with Century feeding ASN/856 transactions from VMS® to Acuitive. Acuitive then receives corresponding freight invoices via EDI 310 feeds from the Jo-Ann carriers. Invoice anomalies are identified systematically and flagged for non-payment pending follow up with the carrier. Validated freight charges flow from Acuitive to VMS®. Jo-Ann’s Accounts Payable team then runs a VMS® report summarizing validated carrier charges in order to process payment. The average invoice approval time is 7-8 days before shipment ETA. Driven by a high level of collaboration and clear business objectives, this program has achieved significant results:

100% audit of Jo-Ann freight invoices prior to remittance, no more short/over payments
99% of all invoice issues are resolved without Jo-Ann involvement
Significant time and cost savings for Jo-Ann stakeholders and their carriers
Carriers became highly motivated to self-correct in order to speed payment processing
Improved data integrity
Elimination of shipment refusals due to payment issues
Greater shipping and delivery certainty

This program earned Century, Jo-Ann, and Acuitive the 2011 Supply Chain Distinction Award for “Best Collaborative Practice”.

Vendor Management

Customer A partnered with Century just over 7 years ago. One of its goals was to manage offshore vendors in a similar manner to its domestic vendors. The problem was a lack of visibility. Customer A and Century designed a vendor consequence management module that would provide them the information necessary to manage, and when necessary, fine its vendors to improve vendor service levels.

Our system’s Vendor Consequence Management (VCM) module developed for Customer A tracks key metrics for each vendor -- including booking date, delivery date, delivery quantity and document information. VCM collects information at a purchase order level and presents that information to Customer A at a vendor level. Our customer monitors each vendor’s service level on a rolling 13 week basis. Supplier service levels are measured in 3 areas: on time booking, on time delivery and on time documentation.

Vendors are fined for each late event, and further fined if their 13 week rolling service level drops below 90%. Our customer has the final decision on whether to issue, adjust or waive each chargeback. The vendors have access to their service and performance details via VMS®. Our system provides them with immediate feedback on their performance.

Thanks to the VCM module, Customer A’s offshore vendor service levels have improved to 97.42%.

Environmental Monitoring and Control

Customer B was having problems with their furniture imports from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Moisture damage was causing a high return rate.

In Southeast Asia, where it's humid year round, we set up a program to check moisture content on the wooden floor of every single container before it is used to load Customer B’s furniture.

The maximum allowable moisture level is 18%. All containers measuring over 18% are rejected.

This program has helped Customer B reduce its furniture returns by over 20%.

Just-In-Time Program

Customer C contracted with our group of companies (Century, “K” Line and Universal Warehouse) to develop a supply chain solution to transform its inventory based printer assembly facility into a just-in-time (JIT) environment. The biggest problem our customer faced was managing the delivery of the right quantity of the right components to maintain daily stock for the assembly lines, without carrying large inventories of spare parts. Our team designed, proposed and implemented a system that starts at the vendor’s door and finishes on the customer’s assembly line floor.

Century books Customer C’s component parts via “K” Line directly to Universal Warehouse in Carson, CA. Universal manages product flow to the customer’s facility in Virginia based on material requirements processing through Century’s VMS® system. Universal utilizes long-haul motor carriers, with team drivers, who deliver to the East Coast assembly facility in three and a half days. VMS® provides our customer with complete control, visibility and flexibility over its JIT supply chain.

In the past year, Customer C applied to U.S. Customs and received Foreign Trade Zone status for its East Coast facility. This dovetails with the West Coast transloading at UWC, which itself is a Customs Bonded facility. Information visibility over the entire supply chain was a key factor in U.S. Customs’ decision to approve the FTZ. The Customs team evaluated VMS® and approved it for use in providing the information to support the FTZ requirements. Our customer and UWC worked together with U.S. Customs to develop several new procedures for processing FTZ shipments within a transload environment. UWC also broke new ground as one of the first users of automated documentation in the Los Angeles Customs district, utilizing a program known as “CAFES” (Custom’s Automated Forms Entry System) to expedite transport of Customer C’s FTZ shipments via bonded motor carriers. Our customer’s annual savings from just this aspect of the program exceed $2 million U.S. dollars.

West Coast Transload

Customer D’s relationship with Century spans 8 years. In May, Customer D decided to begin transloading freight on the West Coast. They selected a third party provider and began the implementation process. In the second week of May, they approached Century to determine if this provider could use the VMS® Transload module to track product flow through the facility. With a startup date of June 1, Century had to quickly analyze the requirements and define the changes necessary to support our customer’s new operation. Century fast tracked the programming changes, enabling the new program to roll out on schedule with no major issues.

The West Coast transload provides our customer with the flexibility to re-route cargo to DC’s where product is in demand. Thanks to VMS®, supply chain visibility is not compromised by the change from ocean container to domestic equipment. The product is tracked from origin in the ocean container (with associated container updates), through the transload, into the trailers and to the door of the DC. Visibility includes trailer updates from the domestic carriers.

Interfacing with Third Party Systems

Century is working with a customer today who utilizes SAP to provide the necessary shipment visibility for their buyers as well as for their customer service teams. An overview of the process begins with the Purchase Order being originated in SAP. Once Century creates a booking for that specific PO, an EDI message is sent from Century's visibility system to SAP, revising the PO status to a ship note. As the process moves from booking to shipment, further updates are sent to SAP which would include carrier B/L, container number, total weight, final quantity, ETA. If or as planned events become actuals, ETA updates will be sent from Century to SAP so the customer has the most updated product status and planned availability. The information provided by Century to this customer is then used to prioritize hot product as well as provide availability updates to their end customers.

By being able to integrate its existing systems with VMS®, Customer E gains a robust visibility tool which increases operational efficiencies and enhances customer shipment visibility.

Longevity

Partnerships