Convoy

The Home Depot, a leading home improvement retailer, faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company had to deal with the possibility of social distancing in warehouse and distribution facilities, and manage extraordinarily volatile demand. The nature of their freight, which includes bulky, heavy, and difficult-to-handle items such as appliances, lumber, light fixtures, and power tools, made loading and unloading time-consuming. This potentially delayed carriers and pushed detention costs higher. The company also had to manage the additional physical asset and matching problem in the yard due to their heavy reliance on drop trailers. The pandemic further complicated these issues, necessitating a quick response to lessen the impact on drivers and implement a flexible strategy for loading and unloading trucks.

Dropps, a company known for its innovative detergent pods, was facing a significant challenge in aligning its supply chain with its sustainability goals. The company had a complex network of distributors and a third-party fulfillment center that shipped inventory to big-box stores. This model was neither efficient nor cost-effective. Moreover, Dropps was competing for shopper attention and shelf space with other brands in brick-and-mortar retail stores. The company wanted to reduce its carbon footprint and make its supply chain as light and efficient as its detergent pods. To achieve this, Dropps needed a new freight partner that could help optimize routes and control carbon emissions.

CHEP, an Australian pallet, crate, and container pooling company, faced a significant challenge in managing the relocation of its pallets from surplus markets to deficit markets. This process resulted in a considerable amount of carbon waste in the form of empty miles. The company, which operates in more than 500 supply chain points in North America and supplies pallets to approximately 14,000 manufacturing locations in the United States, found the management of these pallets to be an incredibly complex task. The pallets are taken in by customers, loaded with freight, shipped to distribution centers and warehouses, deconsolidated, reconsolidated, and then sent further downstream to more than 19,000 retail locations. CHEP collects pallets from these locations and refurbishes them to be used again. The imbalance in freight flows in the United States, due to uneven distribution of production and consumption, necessitated the relocation of pallets, resulting in longer lengths of haul between CHEP's own supply chain points.

Owens Corning, a global company with operations in 33 countries, faced a sudden need for additional capacity from its Santa Clara insulation manufacturing plant. The challenge was to find a freight provider that could deliver excellent service and meet the increased demand. The company's logistics operation for its insulation products is more 'just in time' than many realize, with tight delivery windows to distributors who often have installation crews waiting to unload the truck, load their own truck, and take it to the job site for installation. The company needed a solution that could not only meet the increased demand but also integrate seamlessly with its operations and provide superior service to its customers.

Encore Glass, a company that transitioned from recycling bottles to importing new glass and creating custom packaging for customers, faced a significant challenge in managing its transportation operations. The company had identified experienced carriers to work with, but lacked the means to efficiently manage the relationships with these carriers. The sales and customer service teams were responsible for finding their own transportation solutions, including booking trucks, which was a time-consuming process. Furthermore, they often purchased transportation at a significant premium to market prices. The lack of a dedicated transportation team stood in stark contrast to Encore's commitment to customer service, which included fulfilling even the smallest customers' needs with exactly the right bottles, delivered just in time to be filled. The challenge was particularly acute when serving small winemakers in remote areas, who often lacked sufficient storage space.

Faurecia, a French tier-one auto parts supplier, was grappling with the complexity of its North American transportation network. The company was seeking to simplify its network, reduce costs, and improve service. The challenge was to find reliable carriers who could deliver their high-value automotive freight on time. The truckload carriers that run automotive freight tend to specialize in it and offer dedicated capacity solutions that can become embedded on very regular, repetitive lanes. This made it difficult for non-asset transportation providers to break into those verticals. Furthermore, the specific requirements of the commodities might make them unsuited for digital freight brokerage.

Anheuser-Busch, a leading beverage company, had set ambitious sustainability goals for 2025, including a 25% reduction in carbon emissions across its entire value chain. However, the company faced a significant challenge in achieving these goals due to the 20 million annual empty miles in its supply chain. These empty miles represented a significant source of carbon emissions and inefficiency. Anheuser-Busch operates more than 100 facilities in North America, moving approximately 800,000 shipments per year across 12,000 unique lanes. The company uses a large private fleet and aims for a 50-50 balance between its own assets and purchased transportation. However, filling the backhauls of Anheuser-Busch's private fleet posed a significant challenge, representing a massive opportunity for efficiency gains and reduced environmental impact.

In 2021, a global bottler experienced a significant surge in consumer demand for beverages. However, they faced a major challenge in finding reliable capacity to keep up with the increased volume. Their transportation teams were left scrambling to secure capacity through the spot market, which proved to be more costly and unpredictable. The bottler, being among the top three bottlers for one of the world's largest beverage producers, had to ensure product availability, trucking capacity, and transportation budgets to fulfill the demand. The situation was further complicated as food and beverage producers across the U.S. struggled to find carriers able and willing to transport additional volume. Carriers they did secure often reneged on their contracts, leaving transportation teams scrambling to find often last-minute, unpredictable, and expensive capacity on the spot market.

Joyin, a North American third-party toy seller to major retailers, faced a significant challenge in managing its rapid growth and shifting inventory. The company's revenue had been doubling year over year, and by 2020, it had more than doubled its 2019 revenue of $60 million to reach $140 million. This growth was accompanied by an expansion of its product catalog, with 1,000 items added since April, bringing the total inventory to 3,000 items. However, Joyin's existing shipping platform was unable to keep pace with this growth, leading to inefficiencies and a lack of visibility and control over operations. The situation was further complicated in 2020 when Amazon temporarily prohibited third-party sellers from shipping and storing nonessential goods at its warehouses, posing a significant operational challenge for Joyin.

A leading premium bottled water brand was grappling with supply chain resilience issues, particularly during seasonal surges. The brand's production processes were agile, adjusting bottling and shipping locations on a weekly basis to meet customer demand and drive operational efficiencies. However, this made it challenging to accurately forecast shipment volumes, define pickup facilities, and designate drop-off destinations. The brand also experienced seasonal surges during summer months, which further complicated their logistics. High customer expectations added to the pressure, making it crucial for the brand to find a solution that could ensure reliable and efficient delivery of their products.

Aterian, a tech-enabled Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) platform, was faced with the challenge of optimizing its supply chain to deliver the most valuable product at the best possible price. The company's business model relies heavily on the flexibility and responsiveness of its supply chain to keep up with customer demand. The rise of e-commerce and the shift from brick-and-mortar retail models posed a significant challenge for Aterian. Traditional CPG companies often lack insight into consumer behavior and decision-making processes, which are crucial in the e-commerce landscape. Furthermore, Aterian needed to adapt its product design to align with the e-commerce distribution model, as most of its product lines were legacy products not designed with e-commerce insights.

Waiākea, a premium water brand, was facing challenges with its linehaul transportation, which was primarily less-than-truckload (LTL). The LTL carriers were less flexible, took longer to book, and the rates penalized the water for its weight. This was not only time-consuming but also costly for Waiākea. The company needed to convert their LTL shipments to full truckload while retaining their CarbonNeutral status. The growth of the company also meant that a network of warehouses had to be designed and built to serve the entire country. Waiākea wanted its warehouses to be within a two-day transit of each other, and they needed to be able to ship quickly to local distributors that were stocking shelves at retail locations, typically within five miles of their own locations.