CLIENT PROFILEGeorgia-Pacific is one of the world's leading manufacturers and marketers of tissue, packaging, paper, pulp, and building products and related chemicals. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company employs more than 45,000 people at approximately 300 locations in North America, South America and Europe.THE PROBLEMPrior to using Appointment-Plus, Georgia-Pacific scheduled its inbound truckload docking primarily by phone. This method required dock staff to manually receive phone calls from the carriers, then schedule and confirm the appropriate arrival times and docks. Given an average of 10 deliveries per dock location daily, this task proved time-consuming for both dock staff and drivers. In addition to being inefficient, carriers would sometimes miss their scheduled arrival times.
ANALYSISAimee Fanning, Supply Chain manager, determined that self-scheduling software would be beneficial to Georgia-Pacific's shipping and docking operations. Allowing carriers to schedule their own delivery times online at their convenience would streamline the process and allow dock staff to better manage incoming shipments. Additionally, an automatic e-mail function would be useful in notifying carriers and staff of scheduled times. One important requirement was accessibility, as carriers on the road would need the ability to log into the system to schedule their times.SOLUTIONA Georgia-Pacific shipping manager learned about Appointment-Plus through an online search. After reviewing its capabilities and functionality, Ms. Fanning determined that Appointment-Plus could help the company better manage its inbound truckload scheduling operations and chose it for its scheduling needs.RESULTGeorgia-Pacific manages its inbound truckload scheduling more easily and efficiently thanks to Appointment-Plus scheduling software, which provides the company "with everything it needs." Because it's Web-based, carriers now schedule their own delivery times online 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Automatic e-mail reminders generated from the software inform the carriers of their upcoming delivery times. The software not only makes scheduling convenient for the carriers, but also to the dock locations, which save an average of two hours and $50 per day at each location. Used at approximately 40 dock locations, Appointment-Plus is saving Georgia-Pacific an average of 80 hours and $2,000 daily. In addition to the self-scheduling capabilities, Appointment-Plus also provides dock staff and carriers with effective tracking capabilities. Both dock staff and carriers enjoy the software's functionality.Click here to download PDF of Shipping Scheduling Case Study |
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