Visionary 3PL Leadership Turns Around a Production Site for Award-Winning Performance
A case study in 3PL management that creates a positive culture, improves the partnership, and builds synergy with stakeholders at a customer’s production site.
THE CHALLENGE
WSI had a long-term relationship with a Fortune 500 company operating in multiple states, including dedicated WSI facilities. This client also worked with another 3PL that was not meeting goals in more than half of the agreed-upon key performance indicators.
One 24/7 production site was struggling with poor asset utilization, high damage rates, low inventory accuracy, and high employee turnover. Also, the site was often hit with avoidable penalty costs such as receiver chargebacks and carrier charges such as detention and canceled truck orders.
Having experienced working with WSI before, the client turned to their team to replace the struggling provider. WSI took over responsibility for all movements of inbound raw materials and outbound finished goods. The WSI team coordinates and moves about 80 trailer loads inbound and outbound through the facility each day.
WSI and the client’s teams worked together to create a positive culture, improve partnership, and build synergy with production stakeholders at the location.
THE SOLUTION
WSI leadership adopted the “One Team, One Goal” vision which has resulted in an impressive turnaround, delivering a rapid improvement in leadership, culture, and results.
First, the WSI team focused on hiring, training, retention, and safety. The site is staffed by 101 newly trained hourly employees and 10 salaried leaders spread across four rotating teams.
The site leadership team, led by Carey White, provides positive recognition, clear expectations, and purpose, and holds teams and people accountable.
Second, the WSI team has built relationships with the customers’ stakeholders by creating clear escalation processes. This allowed them to feel like their concerns mattered, were heard, and were addressed as quickly as possible.
Having a daily presence in the client’s meeting structure made it possible to forge relationships and receive real-time information on wins, challenges, and support requests.
“As challenges or opportunities surfaced, we demonstrated partnership and capability by problem solving these concerns, identifying and containing root causes, and mitigating those to prevent reoccurrence,” White said.
The consistent, responsive presence helped the client’s stakeholders understand that WSI was fully invested in supporting their needs and the same approaches drove incremental improvement in results over time.
At the client’s annual conference for 3PL partners, the new WSI site was recognized as the most improved production site in recognition of the impressive turnaround in results. For example, WSI immediately improved asset service by minimizing downtime due to asset delivery and retrieval.
While all performance metrics trended in a positive direction, favorable metrics include a run of nearly two years without a recordable accident, much lower employee attrition rate, reduced product damage during delivery, and favorable Load Ready Time Conformance (LRTC) above 98% for months at a time.
“Our One Team, One Goal focus has made a tangible difference on the work floor and led to great results for our client,” White said.
To learn more:
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