Manko Delivery Systems was founded in 1999 as a local courier in Tampa, Fla. The company got its start delivering mishandled luggage for airlines.
This line of business came to a standstill in 2008 when the airlines started charging baggage fees. The founder turned to a friend, Bryan Bilchik, to help restructure the company. Bilchik was new to transportation but a problem solver with a degree in electrical engineering and Six Sigma certification.
Brian Bilchik, chief operating officer of Manko Delivery Systems“I tried to get us diversified,” he says. Bilchik soon became the general manager of Manko and transformed the business into a one-stop shop for shippers and carriers in need of final-mile home delivery services.
Manko also expanded into warehousing, scheduled cartage and air cargo services for domestic and international shipments.
Bilchik describes Manko’s mainstay, home delivery service as a boutique “soup to nuts” offering. It picks up freight from customer docks and schedules deliveries to consignees at home and manage all returns and pickups.
With headquarters in Tampa, Fla., Manko has opened facilities in Fort Myers and Orlando to offer seamless, same-day and express coverage throughout central and southwest Florida.
Shippers that use Manko for home deliveries include all major big-box stores and online companies. Several major home furnishings retailers use it for warehousing. And truckload and LTL carriers contract with Manko to do their final-mile deliveries and cross docking.
The company also delivers parcel freight during peak seasonal volume.
Most of Manko’s customers give the company access to the same, internal software they use for managing shipments. When logging into these customer portals, Manko employees see where freight is coming from and when it will arrive at its facilities. It also has visibility to service level requirements — delivery to the door, inside the house, or “white glove” unpacking and installation service.
With this information in hand, Manko employees schedule a home delivery with the consignee before the freight arrives on its dock. Once a delivery is made they update the shipment in their customer portals.
Its fleet is comprised entirely of independent contractors. On any given day, the company is operating as much as 40 straight trucks, five tractor-trailers, and 30 cars and vans.
“It works out well for everybody,” Bilchik says of the contractor model. “Contractors can throw another driver in their truck at night and run for another company so their assets are always making money.”
The strategy to become a one-stop shop for shippers and carriers for e-commerce and home deliveries is paying dividends. The company is on pace to increase revenues by 20 percent this year.
For more information about Manko Delivery Systems, see this previous article in CCJ.
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