Transportation Costing Group (TCG), providers of activity-based costing and profitability management tools for truckload and less-than-truckload motor carriers, announced that Mesilla Valley Transportation has chosen and implemented its Truckload Cost Information System (TL/CIS) to develop more effective profitability analyses.
“We chose TL/CIS over other options because this system gives us a fully costed and highly detailed database of our shipments that allows us to create reports in a format we want,” said Scott Webb, an executive at Mesilla Valley Transportation. “One of the first things we did with the TCG solution was to analyze the spot quotes we are providing our customers. Our planners used the TCG data to pick the three least profitable spot quoted lanes in their areas and renegotiated a change in rates. That one exercise not only paid for the TL/CIS system but also made a very substantial difference to our bottom line.”
“To be innovative we need to work with vendors that are dedicated to helping us improve our operation,” Webb added. ”As our partner, TCG has become part of our approach to getting everyone involved, giving them information they need and empowering them to make better decisions.”
For Mesilla Valley Transportation, TCG enabled actual costed data from TL/CIS to be uploaded to the carrier’s data warehouse and accessed using Excel PivotTable reports that are familiar to the company’s staff and its IT department. “That extends the value of the TL/CIS activity-based costing system,” Webb explained, “by allowing users to analyze profitability based on numerous factors, such as individual loads, lanes and trips, drivers, customer service representatives, freight type, and equipment, among others.”
“Mesilla Valley Transportation has a very specific approach to using our TL/CIS solution and is using the costed database in a unique and important way,” said Jack Jones, vice president of truckload product development at TCG. “By providing access to over 100 members of their staff and establishing expectations for each group in very tangible terms, they are measurably and quickly improving profitability.”