Instore cut freight costs and won deals because they can deliver on-time

The challenge

Headquartered in Canada, Instore, produces reusable grocery bags and containers for the largest grocery store chains across North America. The grocery store supplier had a logistics system in place with production in Asia and distribution in North America, but they were the first to admit it wasn’t great. They lacked visibility into their supply chain because their ERP system focused on financial operations including purchase order details and issuing invoices, while the rest of their logistics data was housed in a complex spreadsheet.

All their teams including supply chain, sales, and accounting contributed and collected information from the spreadsheet so it was paramount that the data was there and accurate. Instore had two full-time managers overseeing the spreadsheet by collecting data and inputting the details. However, the leadership team was concerned that their entire operations were reliant on a single spreadsheet, if compromised they would have no visibility over orders or shipments.

The ask to Orkestra was clear: How could we scale more effectively? and reduce reliance on manual work?

The solution

By implementing Orkestra, Instore would get all their data in real-time and the features needed to gain control over their supply chain from managing purchase orders in Asia to selecting freight forwarders to distribute their goods across North America. So now all their teams could operate with accurate data from a cloud-based platform.

In addition to Orkestra, Instore benefitted from our 4PL services. By managing their operations, our team optimized their operations by coordinating shipments, identified opportunities for better market rates, and implemented a new tracking system for carton-level traceability.

The results

With the data accessible in Orkestra, Instore was able to benefit from cheaper ocean freight and domestic trucking carrier rates which netted the grocery store 15% in cost savings for each. Plus, teams were able to move away from their spreadsheet and eliminate thousands of hours of manual work that came with it.

With metrics and analytics available including costs, performance, and delivery ETAs, Instore was able to accurately track On Time in Full (OTIF) performance in Orkestra. Companies with better OTIF scores receive more business because they can deliver on their customer promise. With Orkestra, Instore was able to perform at an exceptionally high OTIF rate, securing their position as a preferred, trusted vendor.