A leading, household-brand US food and beverage manufacturer was struggling with an outdated, insourced logistics model. Operating as a decentralized firefighting unit, their internal team was overwhelmed by manual coordination, severe service volatility, and a complete lack of supply chain visibility.
Key Pain Points:
- Extreme Broker Dependency: Approximately 90% of their freight was outsourced to volatile, high-cost spot brokers, leading to unpredictable rates and unstable capacity.
- Administrative & Operational Drag: The internal logistics team spent 100% of their time chasing down trucks and manually resolving service failures.
- Supply Chain Blind Spots: No centralized tracking technology meant the manufacturer could not provide accurate delivery ETAs to major retail customers, risking costly vendor chargebacks.
The RXO Solution: A Multi-Phase Evolutionary Journey
Phase 1: Complete Transportation Model Transformation
- Eliminating the Broker Trap: RXO phased out the fragmented 90% broker dependency, transitioning the manufacturer to a centralized, managed network backed by RXO’s massive contract carrier asset model.
- Seamless Organizational Shift: Rather than downsizing, RXO designed a change-management playbook that successfully transitioned the client’s internal logistics coordinators away from daily execution stress and into higher-value strategic roles.
- Instant Visibility via RXO Connect™: We deployed RXO Connect™ across their entire North American network, providing a single pane of glass to track and trace every shipment in real-time.
Phase 2: Scaling with Dedicated Transportation Services
- Insulating High-Volume Lanes: Following the successful transition of the managed network, the customer expanded their scope with RXO to include Dedicated Transportation Services.
- Guaranteed Service & Predictability: RXO engineered and deployed a dedicated fleet operation to service their most critical, high-volume shipping lanes. This eliminated spot market volatility, stabilized freight costs, and guaranteed 100% equipment availability during peak seasonal surges.
Phase 3: Active Continuous Improvement (CI) Projects
- Rooting Out Waste with Lean Principles: Rather than just executing daily freight, RXO partnered with the manufacturer on several high-impact Continuous Improvement (CI) projects.
- Engineered Optimization: Using advanced data modeling, our engineering team identified and executed route-consolidation, multi-stop truckload conversions, and warehouse dwell-time reduction projects. These initiatives squeezed additional hidden waste out of the network and turned daily operational data into measurable year-over-year savings.
The Results
- Flawless Transition & Rapid Scale: RXO executed a complete operational takeover of the manufacturer’s transportation department with zero disruption, successfully managing over 29,000 shipments in the first eight months alone.
- Ongoing Year-Over-Year Optimization: By combining Dedicated fleet predictability with continuous engineering studies, the manufacturer transitioned from a reactive spot-market survivor to a highly automated, lean supply chain leader.
- Maximum Retail Compliance: With real-time tracking, reliable dedicated capacity, and engineered transit routes, the client practically eliminated retail delivery penalties and improved on-time performance to all-time highs.