Raymour & Flanigan is the largest furniture retailer in the Northeast, and the seventh largest in the United States.
At Raymour & Flanigan, the Global Logistics Team is tasked with optimizing the company’s supply chain from end-to-end. This usually involves activities like reducing excess spend, increasing operational efficiencies, and increasing supply chain visibility for the organization.
With so many moving parts, and numerous third parties contributing to their supply chain, there was often too much for the Global Logistics Team to handle at once. However, this meant there were opportunities to improve efficiency and to redefine their day-to-day processes with technology.
One big opportunity the logistics team identified was with how the team was managing the drayage portion of their container lifecycles.
Drayage refers to the trucking of shipping containers from the port to a distribution center or warehouse, and then returning the containers back to the appropriate terminal.
Prior to engaging with Gnosis Freight, Raymour & Flanigan was outsourcing their drayage needs to third-party providers. This was expensive and did not give Andrew “Andy” Sauer, Raymour & Flanigan’s Global Logistics Manager, the visibility or control that he wanted.
Importing more than 12,000 shipping containers a year, the size and complexity of Raymour & Flanigan's operation meant managing and scheduling pickups was a complex and time-consuming process.
At any given time, the company had 10+ drayage carriers moving cargo from 4 or 5 different terminals within the Port of New York and New Jersey. These drayage carriers were then taking the containers to 14 different distribution centers scattered throughout the Northeastern United States.
To add to the complexity, the inventory levels at each distribution center, and the need for new inventory were constantly in flux due to variable customer demand. Add in fluctuating drayage rates for each of their carriers, and it became nearly impossible for the Global Logistics Team to manage all these moving parts in-house.
Then, Sauer discovered Gnosis Freight's Container Lifecycle Management™ Platform (“CLM Platform”).
Although he was familiar with many of the technology players in the supply chain and logistics space, he’d had a few bad experiences with other providers. These problems mainly stemmed from the other providers not being able to customize their solutions to meet the unique needs of Raymour & Flanigan.
Working with a skeptical Sauer, and his Global Logistics Team, Gnosis built a custom Drayage Optimization module into Raymour & Flanigan’s new CLM platform. The Drayage Optimization module would take into account all their different drayage and warehousing variables and automatically facilitate their drayage scheduling.
Regarding the customization ability of Gnosis, “It was eye opening to have that kind of hands-on ability,” said Sauer, “as opposed to the other cookie-cutter, out-of-the-box solutions” that he had previously encountered.
Utilizing real-time container tracking data and milestones from Gnosis’ proprietary Marlo™ freight tracking engine, the Drayage Optimization module now gives Sauer and his global logistics team full visibility into their inventory on the water and facilitates the allocation of their inbound inventory to the appropriate distribution centers.
Next, the Drayage Optimization module creates a matrix of containers that need to be delivered. Then, using machine learning, each container is allocated to the ideal drayage provider based on the exact criteria and constraints set by Sauer and his team, who wanted the algorithms optimized for efficiency and to reduce drayage costs across the board.
With this improved supply chain visibility, Sauer and his team have been able to bring all their drayage operations in-house. This change resulted in immediate savings of approximately $15,000 per week on average.
“Not only does Gnosis Freight facilitate much more cost-effective means to manage scheduling and drayage with little effort,” Sauer says, it has “opened completely new doors and avenues as a company.” It's allowed Raymour & Flanigan to “do more with less,” and according to Sauer, created “endless possibilities.”
Sauer and his team are now working with Gnosis on other more advanced CLM Enhancements for their CLM platform to help overcome additional challenges to their supply chain and logistics processes.
Want to learn more about how Gnosis can help you and your team solve some of the biggest challenges in your supply chain?