Southwire was chosen as a Shipper of Choice, an award that recognizes retailers and distributors that value their carrier relationships.
The Shipper of Choice award, presented by FreightWaves in partnership with TriumphPay, recognizes the manufacturers, distributors and retailers that do the best job of keeping the American economy moving by fighting driver detention, providing accessible facilities and understanding what it takes to remove inefficiencies from the supply chain.
Among the top 25 Shippers of Choice for 2023 is … Southwire Co. LLC.
About Southwire
| U.S. headquarters | Carrollton, Georgia |
| Shipper of Choice | First appearance |
Why Southwire made the cut
Southwire Co. LLC is one of North America’s largest wire and cable producers. It operates out of 80 facilities in North America, 70 of which it ships from. Its annual transportation spend is between $250 million and $300 million.
Southwire has been on a four-year journey to build a world-class transportation network. The company started with developing a five-year strategic road map that included systems, processes, team members and carrier partners. The road map focused on FreightTech, strategic partnerships, RFPs, carrier scorecards and freight analytics.
Southwire partnered with key transportation systems providers to make improvements. First, the company implemented a system from U.S. Bank for freight bill audit and payment to enhance its invoice payment process and get carriers paid. Southwire’s Manhattan TMS solution streamlined the company’s load optimization and created a systematic routing guide and shipment tendering. To enhance the customer experience, Southwire launched a project44 visibility tool to provide shipment visibility from its facilities to customers.
Southwire also developed strategic relationships with its asset-based carrier partners. As part of that initiative, Southwire facilitates annual RFPs to strengthen partnerships with incumbent carriers with a focus on economy of scale. Through RFPs, the company continues to optimize its transportation network, furthers its continuous improvement efforts and works to inject new carrier partners in its network efficiently.
Through the development of a carrier scorecard program and identification of key strategic carriers to monitor carrier performance, Southwire determined 10 key measurables and coordinated quarterly business reviews to provide feedback on how the carriers performed. Southwire also created an analytics platform with more than 20 dashboards tailored to monitoring KPIs, network optimization and specific use cases. These dashboards help drive action and communicate the company’s opportunities and success.
In support of its long-term modernization strategy and in an effort to continuously improve customer experience, Southwire will open a new customer service center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2024. The nearly 1.2 million-square-foot facility will distribute products for the full suite of Southwire solutions and effectively streamline the company’s entire product offering to the Southwest and Midwest, emphasizing its commitment to customer service.
The facility will feature three separate driver lounges to provide a safe space for drivers with amenities. Each air-conditioned lounge will have a bathroom, vending machine and waiting area. In addition, the facility will have a drive-thru building flatbed dock with a tarping station.
“It’s a tremendous achievement to receive the FreightWaves Shipper of Choice Award and be recognized in the transportation industry alongside many world-class companies. This achievement is a testament to the efforts of Southwire’s transportation team and demonstrates that our company is a world-class transportation organization,” said Brian Rasperger, Southwire’s director of transportation.
About Shipper of Choice partner TriumphPay
TriumphPay is the transportation industry’s premier payment network trusted by leading shippers, brokers, factors and carriers. Its innovative and highly automated fintech payment solution brings cost savings and efficiencies to antiquated transportation payment processes for network participants. Integrated financing options leverage the strength of TriumphPay’s parent bank and can provide liquidity and cash flow visibility.
TriumphPay is a division of Triumph Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: TFIN).