Manfredi Motor Transit Makes Better Decisions, Improves Customer Service, Increases Loads And Maximizes Utilization Of Their Equipment With TMWSuite™

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Manfredi Motor Transit, headquartered at rural Newbury, Ohio, has been in business for 70 years and has grown to 20 terminals across the U.S. that handle specialty chemicals for many blue chip U.S. firms. They are a classic example of a trucking firm whose operations began over seventy years ago and developed into an international motor carrier with gross revenues projected to exceed $100,000,000 in the year 2000.
John Hazenfield, Senior Vice President of Operations, started with Manfredi 20 years ago. "They had 5 terminals when I started, right around the time of de-regulation when carriers were just getting 48-state authority," said John. "My assignment in central dispatch was to get all the terminals to communicate with each other and increase loaded mile ratios."

The Challenge

Before they chose TMW in 1996, John said, "We'd already been through three different operating and accounting systems. This time we wanted something that was more dispatch-driven, as opposed to accounting-driven. No system existed that was specially designed for the unique needs of bulk carriers until they found TMWSuite, that is."

With our dispatch system, we wanted to see all of our trucks on a live basis so we could make better business decisions and increase our loaded miles," said John. "We knew we couldn't grow the way we wanted to with our terminals just feeding us whatever information they wanted. We needed an Enterprise Wide Resource Planning system with real-time data so our customer service departments, local terminals, and all areas of the business would enter data once, and then be available to any terminal across the country."

The Solution

With TMWSuite from TMW, Manfredi's central dispatch and planning office, as well as their Sales & Marketing Department, can view every load, see where loads are going and the volume from each terminal. They can even look for their own backhauls.

"Now we can better inform everyone of what's likely to happen in the near future. Even though each terminal is anxious to get their drivers out and back right away, both customer service and our P&L department demand that equipment be loaded going both ways whenever possible," said John. "This happens easily, and more often now." Manfredi finds the best part of all this increase in efficiency is the cost savings they pass right back to their customers.

The Result

"TMWSuite has opened up communications between people at Manfredi. "Because we can now look at information from all directions and manipulate that data, we can view it by drivers, by customers, by destinations, and so on," John said. Departments can understand how their part fits with the rest of the operations. "We make better decisions, faster, and get back to our customers quickly. We can increase loads and maximize utilization of our equipment."

"We wanted Microsoft Windows because our people were already using it; learning was quick," John reports. "And it's really great to be able to see my dispatchers handle a load, split a load, move it to another dispatcher -all without fear of missing a load or forgetting any details. My dispatchers always say, 'With TMW the system has never lost a load.' That's what we like to hear."

"One of TMWSuite's strengths is its ability to handle split loads, relays, park and hooks and so on. Now we can follow our loads anywhere they go. This system has drastically reduced our non-conformances," says John. "And the reports are simple, easy and quick to generate. Reports that provide critical information for planning our assets and increasing profitability."

"Manfredi was drowning in technology. TMWSuite gave us the ability to pull all our information together in one Visual Dispatch screen. It's great to see the smiles on our dispatchers' faces."