Tier 1 Automotive Supplier Offloads Parts & Grows Manufacturing

Case Study | BR Williams Alleviates Warehouse & Shipping Congestion

BR Williams is a 60-year-old company specializing in Trucking, Warehousing, and Logistics Services. Founded in 1958, Bill and Ruth started their local, family-owned trucking company in Oxford, Alabama.

Built on three simple themes: Honesty, Integrity, and Service (H.I.S.), BR Williams trucking has become a leader in the transportation industry. The company that began as one man, one truck and one dream has grown to a fleet of 165 satellite-equipped tractors and 625 air-ride van trailers, servicing the 48 contiguous states and Canada.

Executive Summary

Needing more receiving and storage space to accommodate the increased business, a large Tier 1 automotive supplier engaged BR Williams. BR Williams provided automotive logistics services as well as inventory tracking and management to help alleviate inefficiencies. Working together led the company to expand manufacturing capabilities and experience company-wide growth.

Challenges

Our customer’s business was experiencing a period of great success, but they were at capacity and out of space to store parts. They were also having trouble keeping up with the volume of parts required for production. Their receiving and storage areas were overflowing. This problem was resulting in damaged parts, low productivity, and slow response times. 

Generally, their suppliers ship them parts unsystematically on pallets. This disarray means they needed to unload, sort, and receive the parts in their warehouse management system (WMS), requiring significant space and staff-hours. Two things they didn’t have. 

Knowing it would be more expensive to expand and hire more associates, they turned to BR Williams to help solve their challenge. They felt comfortable with our experience working with automotive manufacturers to maintain and manage raw materials, as well as finished goods.

How BR Williams Helped

Never having worked with a third-party logistics company before, there were a few bumps in the road to start. After determining the best way to manage their processes, systems, and procedures, together we ironed out a cooperative solution.

Rather than construct new, costly warehouse space, we offloaded their product storage to our facilities. By handling and storing their products, we were able to eliminate the need for 50% of their delivery trucks. This elimination eased congestion both in the warehouse and at the shipping docks. 

We also helped our new partner free up approximately 30,000 square feet of old warehouse space. They converted the area to manufacturing space to concentrate on their growing customer demands.

With room to work with and freedom of movement, they became more organized and increased production. Our customer was no longer spending precious time on receiving and warehouse activities. Instead, they could now focus on manufacturing. The best part – there was no need for capital investment.

Results, Return on Investment and Future Plans

By handling all aspects of their warehousing and transportation needs, the large Tier 1 automotive customer became more productive than ever before. We are currently receiving over 2,000 pallets of parts per month from our customer’s suppliers. Of these parts, we are sorting and labeling over 37,000 cases of inbound products per month. We are picking and shipping more than 40,000 cases of product per month.

By moving receiving functions off-site, they reduced their internal workforce and saw far less congestion. This reduced daily inbound trucks from 7 to 3. Accuracy in shipments grew to 99.3% with nearly no, or .0043%, mis-shipments or damages. 

The production and accuracy improvements allowed the customer to be more responsive to their growing manufacturing requirements. Now, they can focus on their core business, and leave the management of their inventory to us. 

“By using BRW our customer was able to increase their manufacturing output and as a by-product improved their inventory accuracy and streamline the flow of product into their facility.”

David Nunnelley, VP of Warehousing and Distribution

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