From the category archives:

Best Practices

Keeping it Simple, Understanding Customers Needs

by George Muha on February 2, 2012

Replace tech rider to engineer, FOH mixer to sales person, artist to customer service department, tour accountant to budget manager, local sound company to inventory manager and instead of saying “what the venue actually needed” to “what the customer actually needed”.  Now isn’t that life imitating art, I don’t know what is.

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What to do When a Freight Carrier Goes Out of Business

by George Muha on January 24, 2012

I wanted to give a word of advice to shippers out there they may be using a freight carrier who is on shaky financial ground.  If you are shipping with a freight carrier (I don’t want to say any names) who happens to be having a fire sale of assets, is facing a dilution of [...]

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Kiss Your Supply Chain

by George Muha on January 19, 2012

Kiss your supply chain.  No, I am not telling you to kiss your supply chain that way you weirdo!  I’m talking about the K.I.S.S. way.  You know, the Keep It
Simple Silly way!
A very smart person told me one time that the best ideas don’t always get the best results.  Sometimes it’s the simple idea that [...]

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Do you question the way your company does certain things and wonder if there might be a better way things could be done?  Here’s a simple test to see if your company has any fangled processes in place that take much more time, man power and money than it should.  Simply ask the people who [...]

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Rail, The Other White Meat

by George Muha on January 17, 2012

A great alternative to consider when trying to reduce overall transportation costs is rail.  A rail provider can come to your facility and pick up your load just
like a truckload carrier.  The difference is for the line haul portion of trip, your shipment is moving via rail road.
The down side of using rail is that [...]

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Creating More Profitable “FREE FREIGHT” Rules

by George Muha January 16, 2012

HAVING AN EQUALIZED “FREE FREIGHT” PROGRAM KILLS PROFITS, SO CHANGE IT
It’s common for shippers to have an equalized free freight program.  What I mean by equalized freight program I am talking about offering “free freight” to customers who purchase a certain amount of volume of goods, regardless of their geographical location.  The problem is transportation [...]

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The Supply Chain Self Test

by George Muha October 18, 2011

The book The New Supply Chain Agenda (Harvard 2010) outlines an excellent strategy to help companies achieve supply chain excellence.  This book also has some very effective self surveys to help companies identify the current state of things concerning their own supply chain operations.  However, I like to keep things simple and wanted to share [...]

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Freight Audit Companies Fall Short in this One Area: Aged Invioces

by George Muha October 11, 2011

This post is going to be short, sweet and to the point.  I love what a good freight audit company can do for a shipper!  These firms usually can process invoices way more effectively than a shipper can on their own.  In addition, some of these firms can output metrics and business intelligence that can [...]

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Is it Legal to Mark Up Freight Charges?

by George Muha September 21, 2011

Is it legal to mark up freight charges? No, its not.  So lets load up the paddy wagon and start bringing American businesses to justice!  Okay, I’m only partly kidding around so readers can relax.  Technically it’s not illegal to mark up freight charges but in so doing suppliers may be violating the purchasing terms.
Allow [...]

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How Bad Are Parcel Companies Screwing You?

by George Muha September 13, 2011
Thumbnail image for How Bad Are Parcel Companies Screwing You?

One thing I hear a lot in the voice of shippers is their lack of confidence when it comes to their parcel pricing programs.  Recently a shipper told me, in a boasting kind of a way, of the new discount he just achieved with UPS.  Then he immediately asked me if I thought that was [...]

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