Ryder Streamlines Transportation Procurement with i2’s Transportation Bid Collaboration System
Novi, Michigan USA
October 2, 2008
By
Evan Armstrong

Key Personnel:
Todd B. Carter – Vice President and General Manager, Global Transportation Management
Tim Podvin, PLS – General Manager, Global Procurement
Eric Stepaniak – Assistant Truckload Manager

Ryder Logistics & Transportation – Overview
Ryder Logistics has grown to be a significant global transportation manager. For 2007, Ryder managed over $4 billion in global transportation. Non-asset based transportation management services were an estimated $2.2 billion, subcontracted transportation was $950 million and asset-based transportation within Ryder’s Supply Chain Solutions and Dedicated Contract Carriage businesses was approximately $850 million. Transportation management is the transportation spend that Ryder contracts, procures, or executes on behalf of its customers.

Ryder Transportation Procurement Organization
With core competencies in transportation management and warehousing, Ryder has over 20 years of experience in procuring outsourced transportation for its customers. Ryder has built a 43 person centralized procurement team in Novi, MI focusing on global transportation procurement of all transportation modes. Ryder’s procurement team has functional experts for all major transportation modes and industry vertical segments (Automotive, Consumer Products, High-Tech, Telecommunications, etc.). In 2007 it managed the procurement of an estimated $2.2 billion in global transportation and has over 1,700 carriers under contract.

Other Ryder Procurement Organization facts:

• ISO 9001-2000 documented procurement and contracting processes.
• Performs formal request for proposals (RFP’s), spot bidding, and direct negotiations.
• Has a standardized carrier on-boarding process.
• Annual carrier quality measurement and awards process.
• Administers standardized carrier contracts, master agreements and addenda.
• Utilizes standardized pricing formats, tariffs and rules.

Ryder’s Rationale for an Advanced Transportation Procurement Solution

According to Tim Podvin, general manager of global procurement, “While our current RFP process is effective, it is also very labor intensive, time consuming, and sub-optimal. We knew we could improve and looked outside our organization to see what leading tools were available.”

Transportation procurement improvement areas identified by Ryder:

• The current RFP process was aimed at minimizing costs only along individual lanes.
• Additional savings potential could be achieved through collaborative bidding.
• There was a need for web based functionality and communications.
• Ryder needed a single platform for all bid information, critical data, and document sharing.
• Visibility to carrier bids in progress was desired.
• An automated bidding process was beneficial.
• Post bid optimization and decision support was needed.
• Ryder wanted to have greater speed to market with RFP’s.
• Faster post bid analysis was desired.
• There was a need for on-line carrier awarding capability.
• A tighter process could increase Ryder’s competitive advantage in transportation procurement.

Decision Factors for Choosing i2’s TBC

After an extensive evaluation process, Ryder decided to utilize i2 Technologies Transportation Bid Collaboration (TBC) system. Its key decision factors for choosing TBC are listed below:

• i2 is an industry leading solution provider with a stable systems portfolio. It has over 15 years of experience supporting 3PL operations. Ryder also uses i2’s systems for daily transportation planning and management and strategic supply chain network modeling.
• The TBC system has multi-modal capability and can handle truckload, less-than-truckload, and international air and ocean bids.
• It is fast and scalable and has a powerful constraint based post bid optimization engine. TBC’s constraints include: how business is awarded, how carriers are selected, price factors and carrier capacity factors.The TBC has easy and effective scenario creation and comparison and online bid support functionality and scenario management. It also has pre-built integration with popular office applications.
• i2 TBC is process based, with strong software support and runs on the flexible FreightMatrix ASP service model.
• Data utilized for RFPs and carrier bid responses automatically integrate and can be easily transferred to the Ryder/i2 transportation management system for efficient carrier on boarding and quicker customer operations start ups.

Screenshot of a Ryder/i2 TBC top-level bid management screen

Screenshot of a demonstration TBC carrier invite bid management screen

Summary
With the selection of i2’s TBC system, Ryder has expanded its use of i2’s systems to support its transportation management operations and increase efficiencies. Moreover, it has increased its ability to save customers even more money on transportation. This is a good example of a solid IT solution supporting 3PL staff in building optimal supply chains for customers.

Sources: A&A Primary Research, http://www.ryder.com/