Improving the Flow of Products Through Visibility

Keeping goods flowing efficiently is vital for meeting customer demands and staying ahead of the competition. For Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, the world’s preeminent beverage alcohol distributor, they know that timely and efficient product distribution plays an integral role in maintaining their leadership position within the industry.

Southern Glazer’s, a multi-generational family owned company, represents more than 1,700 wine and spirits suppliers and distributes more than 7,000 brands across 45 U.S. markets, Canada, as well as brokerage operations through its WEBB Banks division in the Caribbean, Central and South America. As the company sought to deliver products to an ever-growing global market, Southern Glazer’s encountered several challenges with its supply chain. This included limitations related to tracking and monitoring the movement of goods from production facilities to distribution centers and ultimately to retailers and consumers. This lack of visibility had far-reaching consequences, as it impeded the distributor’s ability to address disruptions promptly, leading to delivery delays that impacted customer satisfaction.

In 2015, Southern Glazer’s began working with a third party logistics (3PL) provider. However, the company did not see the desired improvements in distribution. Southern Glazer’s began looking for a new 3PL, and turned to a familiar face—Ryder. Southern Glazer’s has leased the majority of its fleet from Ryder for more than 40 years. So, when it came to finding solutions for its supply chain, the relationship between the two companies evolved.

“We needed someone to partner with us and grow with us,” says Bobby Burg, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Southern Glazer’s. “When we met with Ryder it opened our eyes to what is possible. They were extremely eager to build solutions with us and for us.”

Because of the long-standing relationship with Ryder on the vehicle lease and maintenance side, it’s a natural next step to take advantage of Ryder’s supply chain solutions and technology, as well as its expertise in managing carriers, both of which are of significant value to Southern Glazer’s suppliers and customers.

“Ryder was willing to lean in on what was black holes for us,” Burg says. “No one else would say they would jump into the deep end with us.”

Ryder’s solution was to restructure the inbound transportation through its transportation management solution and implement a one-of-a-kind visibility and collaborative logistics technology, RyderShare™. The result makes Southern Glazer’s inbound supply chain more efficient and resilient, which ultimately means its suppliers’ products get to market even faster.

Implementing the Solution

The engineering of the solution began with a four-day process mapping session in early March 2020. The Southern Glazer’s and Ryder teams dissected every detail and created a flexible plan to move forward.

“From my seat, I was looking to solve business issues and find where the issues in our transportation network were,” says Rebecca Steele, Vice President of Logistics at Southern Glazer’s. “We did not have clear answers to why we couldn’t get freight into market on time. Fulfillment on the front end was not ideal.”

For Southern Glazer’s, fulfillment is vital. And, it all came down to visibility. The company wanted complete visibility of freight from purchase order (PO) placement to inside the warehouse to delivery. This included all freight whether it was being moved by Southern Glazer’s or a third party. Quite simply, they wanted to know “Where’s my PO?”

That one, unique system is RyderShare™ the ultimate digital product that gives all stakeholders in the supply chain 100% real-time visibility and collaboration on freight as it moves through the supply chain inbound, outbound, and inside the warehouse. Through RyderShare™, and its dashboards, every person in the supply chain is looking at the same information at the same time. Because of it, Southern Glazer’s, and the Ryder team, is now able to see where orders are, the causes of delays, and when orders will arrive.

More than Visibility

Historically, Southern Glazer’s could see when freight wasn’t moving, but didn’t know why it wasn’t moving or how to fix it. By implementing RyderShare™, they now have the visibility to know the source and severity of the delays. The visibility leads to accountability. Southern Glazer’s can hold partners and internal business teams accountable to prevent these delays in the future. In addition, there is added granularity to the visibility. Under the previous systems and processes, the Southern Glazer’s team did not have the visibility of multi-leg moves—it was shown as only one move. They now have the visibility of first leg drayage, ocean moves, destination drayage, intermodal drayage, consolidation, and through final delivery.

“By having the granularity through RyderShare™, we can address and prevent detention and demurrage fees, and identify network optimization opportunities. I’m also not asked where my PO is anymore,” says Andrew Vermilion, Vice President of Supply Chain at Southern Glazer’s. “We used to have seven people chasing POs. Now with RyderShare™ we can do more value added activities. We are managing the freight, the freight isn’t managing us.”

Vermilion adds now with RyderShare™ the team is much more focused and moving the ball forward instead of chasing it.

“Our team members are able to learn and grow in an organization where they weren’t able to do that before,” he says. “People are able to do what they are good at.”

RyderShare™ also provides new data Southern Glazer’s did not have access to in the past. This data helps plan loads and optimized movements through predictive analytics. The team is able to leverage accurate, timely, and complete data in everything that they do and use it in key decisions they make. As the partnership evolves, Ryder will continue enhancing the data, reporting, and dashboard visibility.

Because of the visibility and accountability provided by Ryder’s solution and through RyderShare™, on-time deliveries have improved to better than 98% and on-time pickup has jumped to 80%.

Engineering for the Future

For Southern Glazer’s, the Ryder solution is much bigger than just the processes, technology, and platform. It is also about the service. Steele and Vermilion agree the system is the foundation, but the service takes the system to a much higher level.

“We are always looking for ways to improve the process,” says Vermilion. “Ryder is not only very supportive and open to our ideas, but appropriately brings alternatives and new ideas to the table. We strive to be the leader in the wine and spirits logistics space, and Ryder helps us maintain and grow our capabilities.”

Vermilion adds, “Our team is constantly in contact with the team at Ryder. We truly operate as one. We respect each other’s roles and responsibilities in the partnership and are looking out for the best interested of both parties. We have frequent execution-focused calls with the Ryder team to ensure the freight is moving and address any exceptions.”

Southern Glazer’s is aspiring to become the hospitality industry’s most valued logistics and insights provider over the next 10 years. Its partnership with Ryder will be pivotal in achieving this vision.

“Ryder comes to the table with ideas,” says Steele. “The answer isn’t a hard no. The answer is collaborative and thoughtful. The Ryder team takes the time to understand our needs, the business requirements, the context, and the why. This allows them to be part of the design and helps us think of things we may not have.”

As the Ryder and Southern Glazer’s teams look to grow the relationship and solutions, it’s their unwavering commitment to continuous improvement that will cause success.

“Not every problem has to have the perfect solution,” Vermilion says. “Solutions can evolve and improve over time as people and processes develop. The Ryder team does a great job of navigating the journey with us as a partner with shared goals.”