do you wanna do a quick introduction about the DC warehouse you manage please
third-party logistics firm for a large production I'm sorry construction
producer and we have product brought in by railway to our location and we send
out to their customers via flatbed trailers pretty simple operation a lot
of mostly full units are moved and the customer base is strong the business
itself is very consistent so I you can manage with just a few amount of people
and some forklift equipment and answer it's a great place to be great fantastic
so what what was the problem that you guys were trying to solve right let's
start from the beginning you know what were you guys doing before
before we engaged right before you guys started using load proof you know what
was the problem you're trying to solve and you know what were your frustrations
so as simple as I just made the introductory operation sounds damage to the
material has always been an issue both on the inbound rails and customer
complaints after receiving the flatbeds these are very large units that don't
necessarily have protection around the outside so certainly it can happen
before loadproof we were at the mercy of conversations with both
upstream and downstream leaders taking their word for best practices used
during loading the material and unloading and you know we had a little
more leverage when we were dealing with our suppliers from the railway as far as
things they could do to help protect the product as it was coming from their
location on the customer side of things you know generally we would just accept
what customers would share with us and they would
generally get refunded for any damage that they may have received now that we
have loadproof we are able to capture photos of both the inbound product as it
arrives to share with the producers and give them specific examples of things
that we'd like to see changed in protection and on the delivery side of
things we're capturing each load before it leaves our facility and so when we
hear a customer complaint down the road about damage and or even missing items
we have the photos to prove that yes we did
or no we did not have an issue on our end and we believe it had to have
occurred after it left our facilities but it's oh it's better you you guys have
now have a tool hey this is how it shipped and when it shipped from our
facility you can you can clearly demonstrate the condition you're not
blindly taking they words you know claims that charge match whatever it is right
yeah exactly and you know there's another party a part to that in the
delivery you have contracted trucking lines who are making those deliveries so
you know we feel I think more often than not we're not doubting that the damage
is received on their end but what was done from the time I left our facility
to arriving at their facility whether it may have been straps that were tightened
too much to cause issues with the product or jostling from the travel or
even sometimes on the customer end damage incurred when they're unloading
things yes um someone would sometimes claim that no it
was like that when they took it off so again with those photos and with the
proof we can feed back to them and show them that no we had no issue on our end
when this load was loaded and at that point you know
the customer who delivers to us is not held accountable for those
damages that they see okay all right um so sorry go ahead
no no III go ahead so you know how did you feel about right what would be to a
good interest load proof was actually a corporate initiative with my company I
am a general manager of a Kenco facility looking at some of the
correspondents for smart gladiator and all I see that Trevor like had a great
statement for you in defense or an appreciation of your company I've worked
directly with Trevor that's my time here and yeah the ultimate goal for Kenco is
to have loadproof in all the facilities because we've seen the benefits and it's
it's totally worth it to to have it available for when these occasions arise
got it got it so so I mean I know I know it was spearheaded by Christie and
Trevor from an innovation perspective um you know out of out of you know from your
personal you know perspective right from your own oh you know challenges in your
daily life you know running the facility shipping all these products fulfilling
all these orders the making sure your customers are happy right how did you
Perceive you know I mean obviously there's one
thing hey it's a corporate mandated roll out across all facilities purchase
this really gonna help me save money save labour blah blah
what was your you know a perspective you know apart from you know apart from Kenco
Christie and Trevors recommendation just just know I mean I'm just trying to
get your you know I say warehouse manager you have you know a lot of people that
are you know you're managing and making sure all this gets done correctly from
your perspective what was your you know feeling yeah challenges when the idea was
first brought to me I was all for it because I have been involved with
similar systems in has to work life and if it's so much
does save a heartache down the road where you don't have the answers or you
don't have the proof to show that you did everything correctly on your end so
I was all for it I think I was probably one of the first ones to get on board
and get the app installed and all to be honest with you it's simple to use the
biggest issue I had was really having the team buy-in because now we just
change their process and made them stop and take some photos and all and again
though after a while they see the advantages of doing so as well and it
protects them also from possible disciplinary because they would have
been blamed for the image and or misses or what have you so now it's a it's an
accepted culture there is no issue whatsoever in in having the team use the
application and we capture every single load as it as it leaves the building
perfect perfect okay also so how long did it take for the you the team to buy into
the thing it was it like a week month how long did it take when they realize
oh my god now I can show this no show that I did my job well now
as you know a lot of people are resistant to change right yeah I think
that probably drove it more than anything with some senior folks but
honestly within a couple weeks we had it up and running and we have some issues
that weren't related to loadproof itself
we had some connectivity issues we had to purchase some my wi-fi's
we had to purchase some laptop just yeah to have out on the floor in the
protection and of those and whatnot so it was a bit of an investment up front
but again so much worth it got it okay so you know what results you
know you guys were able to quantify I mean obviously now you have proof you
can show that right apart from that what are the other areas of the business that
improved you know by by deploying this loadproof tool
you know as much as it was used and it's used for final conversations with a
customer down the road I think it helped improve the performance of the workers
we have here because not only are we using it to show proof down the road it
captures what they did or how they performed as they were loading these
trailers as well and it's not meant to be used as a tool against them but it's
meant to be used as it as a proof tool either way you want to look at it so I'm
sure there's been a couple occasions where customers said they were missing
some product and when I refer back to the photos the customer was right in the
past you know the loader could have said no it definitely was on there and we can
go do a cycle count and everything added up we haven't you know we have no other
choice but to believe them because the workers are there good workforce and a
lot of senior guys have been doing this a long time but yes it was able to hold
our people accountable as well it's improved their performance they realized
that the tool is present and they need to always be doing the right thing so
internally tough as well great so we improve the internal morale you know who
everybody knows hey you know it's all big documentary I know that really do
make sure I do my job yes and not asking them to do anything over-the-top or or
beyond their responsibility it's just perfecting what they do on a normal
daily basis and you know obviously that's what the customer expects they
expect every load in perfect order and exactly as ordered so it's helped drive
that considerably great great so I mean I think from a coming from a 3pl
perspective right it's even more important for you guys that's why I mean
you guys are basically the experts in this business right that's why the big
brands the big you know companies you know outsource it to you guys right yes
absolutely we still have some opportunity on the inbound side of
things as much as we are the origin for the outside customers so now we need the
producers to become the origin we can feed back to them I've been
looking into that and I've certainly shared the information about loadproof with
them and that may be something that they look into but unfortunately you know we
can't they're not kind they're not corporate so
that would be up to them whether they want to go after that in the meantime
there's still plenty of photos shared and whatnot of what we see and things
we'd like to see done differently there's been a complete Lean Six Sigma
Greenbelt projects involved with Quality Manager of the customer to get that to
get that you know really looked at specifically they changed some things
and they've sent us 15 to 20 cards that they pointed out to me they definitely
wanted me to notice when they were taken into the building to know the
differences or things that they've tried for protection and if it worked if it
been worked so that happened a few weeks ago well awesome the feedback was provided
okay they are still being worked unfortunately it was outside of the
realm of load proofing if load proof were involved on both ends it probably
could have been done a lot simpler oh really okay so this is for the inbound
they are going to pull the product insight when they're shipping to us okay okay so
is it under their facilities or is it in the inbound docks in your
facility that you're managing yeah they're in there in my facility where
the product is originating from they do not use the app currently got it fot
it okay you guys have both the manufacturing and distribution in the
same campus or in the same facility we're basically a middle warehouse if you will
that is the basis of 3pl so technically we're not producing or manufacturing
anything where we're taking from the supplier after the train haul and
sending out on the flat this store it temporarily okay okay all right I mean I
know what what was the you know ROI of using
load proof for me know if it is if it's not a big deal to share any numbers I'm
just curious how much money I mean there are two two big savings like one is
no damage to the product itself so the product itself is protected well now two is
who is who is you know once the damage happened a claim comes through
then you guys are spending a lot of time spending Labor's weeding out hey how did
this happen why did this happen how can we make sure this does not
happen again right at least I see two types of savings right you know how does how
did that you know I mean if it's not a big deal to share numbers right you know
complete numbers it's not that's okay you know what did not look like I I'd say it's
really tough to capture a number because you're right all those factors do come
into play reduce the labor you know quicker turnover more efficient
operations I will tell you this though if I were to guess you know it's gotta
be in the tens of thousands but as far as our ROI goes for the cost of our dock goes a
month
we easily get $45 worth of productivity back if not a thousand times as much so
so the tenth of tens of thousands of dollars is that per month
saving surprise yeah well you know maybe five to ten I think is fair to say about
consider the amount of claims that no longer go through because we were able
to justify yeah it's just the overall um decrease in damage that we have seen on
the outbound side of things because of load proof those two things alone I would
say easily a few thousand absolutely okay got it and you know is that a
percentage that the number of claims came down by you know would you be able
to put a percentage to it and say what that would be please I couldn't say that
that a that's all run through the customer being in the 3pl operation
we're not necessarily privy to all of that information but I think um you know
maybe the number of claims itself has not decrease but the number of claims
paid certainly has interesting okay asked so yeah I think monetarily it's
made a big difference in that regard got it got it so so even though now people
submit the claims and you guys have the proof to refute those okay you know look
at this right we did our job right and bigger pictures absolutely and
and adding those pictures you know help to you guys to push back those claims
you know much more better right yeah that's the whole purpose
um you know and even in the beginning you know we were taking photos of the
outside and if there was questions as to well you guys really didn't capture
everything with your photos okay so we expand the photos he can take endless
amounts of photos and associated with a certain delivery you know the customer
wants to see the front and back of every unit that gets on there but we are not a
problem we can do that some customers are a little bit trickier than others
generally we don't have a huge issue I would say with damage material being
shipped customers but when the situation arises it's nice to know that little
group is there to back us up got it got it got it perfect
sounds great