Transportation team races to record savings

eChain Technology joins Kimberly-Clark i2 TM and SAP R/3 Transportation Management Project lending business and solution leadership that helps drive significant transportation savings.

By Barbara Kieker, Kimberly-Clark Contributing Writer July 29, 2008

By the end of March, the rollout of the new Transportation Management System (TMS) in North America was complete. Two months later, at the end of May, savings on freight costs to get K-C finished products out the door had reached US$6.3 million, more than the $6 million in full-year savings forecasted for North America in 2008.

"Thanks to lots of hard work by the Transportation team, we've been able to deliver terrific savings with the new system," says Amy Bare, TMS project manager. "Thanks to the commitment of the user community to the new Transportation Management System, we are on track to deliver twice the expected 2008 savings for North America," says Amy Bare.

People make it work

The new Web-based TMS enables better optimization of carrier selection and load configurations for outbound freight. While the system provides the functionality, it's the people on the Transportation teams that make it work. *The TMS project team - which included members from the K-C Transportation business team, K-C IT Services business partner team and Cognizant - worked to constantly improve supporting processes as the system was being implemented at different sites. This upfront work enabled the team to realize savings from improved performance more quickly once the rollout was complete.

Mary Robinson, director of Transportation Rates and Analysis, has been a part of new transportation system implementations in several other companies including Nestle USA and Clorox. She believes the upfront investment made before the system went live resulted in the successful implementation. "The TMS project team made the effort to understand how the system worked and what that would mean for the businesses," she says. "They put metrics in place to ensure we followed the optimizations. As a result, there have been fewer surprises and less pain than I've experienced in other implementations."

In addition, the system's users within Transportation committed to learning the new system and creating processes as needed to resolve issues. After the rollout was complete, users were forced to solve many issues on their own as the TMS project team was reassigned to support work on the Order to Cash and inbound freight project. "It's really the user community that has made the system successful," Bare says. "They have done an outstanding job in a far from ideal situation." "The TMS project team invested the time upfront to understand how the system would impact the businesses," says Mary Robinson, director of Transportation Rates and Analysis.

Cognizant: A partnership that works

As K-C's external partner for IT Applications Development, Cognizant did the development work on the new TMS. K-C IT business partners worked closely with Cognizant resources to communicate and manage business requirements. They used an onshore/offshore model, with resources located in Knoxville, Tennessee, and India.

"We have a fantastic relationship with the Cognizant team," Bare says. "They took great ownership in delivering the project and it shows in the results." Cognizant will continue to be involved with TMS going forward. They are responsible for ongoing system support. "Originally we were not overly excited at the prospect of working with an outsourcing partner as part of the BSD effort," Bare says. "Now I have to say I can't imagine doing the project without Cognizant."

Inbound is next

Thanks to the effort of everyone involved, Transportation is on pace to deliver $15 million in 2008 savings in North America, which is more than double the original expectation. In Europe where the system was launched last year, savings for 2008 are on target. The next priority in the area of transportation savings is inbound freight - the expense associated with shipping to our plants the materials that go into K-C products. Inbound freight will be addressed as part of the larger IT project focused on K-C's Order to Cash process.

Implementation of the new Order to Cash and inbound freight systems is currently scheduled for May 2009. "We expect our learnings from the implementation of the outbound freight system and processes will be a tremendous help with the inbound freight work next year," Bare says.

About eChain Technology

eChain Technology (http://www.echaintechnology.com) enables companies to achieve world class performance through best practice business strategy hands-on expertise and technology solutions. We provide leadership and execution in many areas of the corporate enterprise that remove all excess waste and cost from your operations leaving you with seamless solutions providing flawless execution that provide a significant cost savings to you.

Mr. Lewis Kilby is a 20+ year business and solutions consultant and Managing Partner of eChain Technology. Email: lkilby@echaintechnology.com