Transportation Costing Group, providers of activity-based profitability and cost analysis for the transportation industry, announced that FFE Transportation Services is utilizing its Truckload Cost Information System (TL/CIS) and its CIS for Irregular Route LTL. The Dallas-based company says it has been using TCG’s solutions to improve profitability in various segments of its operation for several months.
FFE, a publicly owned transportation company, is a provider of temperature-controlled truckload, less-than-truckload and dry truckload services throughout North America. The company also offers logistics, expedited, ocean and brokerage services locally and internationally, as well as an intermodal program that provides temperature-controlled, dry and LTL freight hauling from coast to coast.
“These are intense times for the trucking industry,” says Adam Bush, manager of marketing technology at FFE. “As freight volumes and rates continue to decrease and pricing pressures rise, we are finding that TCG’s Truckload and LTL solutions are proving extremely valuable for maintaining asset productivity and identifying opportunities to improve profitability. With these solutions, we’re handling loads more profitably.”
FFE says TCG’s tools are being used to identify profitable and unprofitable loads in different regions and over specific lanes. For example, the carrier says it was able to identify one region where a lack of outbound loads at sufficient rates created an unprofitable environment. By adjusting its load sourcing accordingly, FFE says it was able to increase revenue per mile for that business by more than three cents without losing freight volume.
“TCG CIS gives us a top level view of our profitability, and lets us drill down to pick and choose loads strategically,” Bush says. “Its strong analytical capabilities identify pricing pressures on a case-by-case basis. In some cases, it can also help our customers understand the need to adjust rates, or to find a solution that works for them and is still profitable for us.”
FFE says profitability analysis also is proving valuable in its growing intermodal operation. “The TCG solutions incorporate the costs associated with rail and drayage portions of each intermodal haul,” Bush says. “This is also an example of how TCG works with us to develop the cost analysis solutions that we need in a competitive environment.”
“TL/CIS and LTL/CIS provide quantified cost and profit information related to each activity, dispatch and load,” says Ken Manning, president of TCG, based in Rockville, Md. “The complexity of their business presents an opportunity to demonstrate how our activity-based software provides exceptional value and is perfectly suited to address the immediate and long-term cost analysis needs of irregular-route LTL carriers such as FFE Transportation Services, in addition to their truckload services.”
The TCG CIS systems in use for all aspects of FFE’s business utilizes information from the carrier’s enterprise management software purchased from Innovative Computing Corp. to provide accurate, specific cost information for pricing, as well as traffic, profitability and operational productivity analyses, according to the companies; the TL/CIS and LTL/CIS solutions reconcile with the company’s general ledger, payroll and driver settlements.
