From the category archives:

Tips for Purchasing Managers

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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Fuel Price Graph: 2008-2012

by George Muha on January 25, 2012

For those of you who tend to be concerned with fuel prices (in other words, all of us), I thought this was a good visual.  Fuel prices have not peaked to the levels of mid 2008 which is a good thing.  But diesel did rise 29% from 2010 to 2011.  However, the Department of Energy [...]

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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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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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What Time Limit Does a Freight Carrier Have to Send an Invoice

by George Muha September 28, 2011

One question I get a lot is about the time frame in which a carrier has to invoice a shipper.  Shippers get surprised when a freight invoice pops up twelve months after a shipment was executed and they feel there might be some clause that gets them off the hook.  Well, I’m here to burst [...]

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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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