[ IN PRACTICE ] CASEBOOK
Shifting Gears to Drive Improvement
National Oak Distributors, an automotive paint, body, and equipment warehouse distributing company founded in 1995, reaches more than 95% of the country with next-day delivery. Because timeliness lies at the heart of its business model, supply chain visibility and accurate reporting are key.
THE CUSTOMER National Oak Distributors is an automotive paint, body, and equipment (PBE) warehouse distributing company with more than 400 employees. Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, its portfolio consists of 50,000-plus products from more than 200 manufacturers stocked in 24 warehouses across the United States. THE PROVIDER IL2000 is a full-service freight and logistics company based in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
When Cale Beckman, vice president of operations at National Oak Distributors, came onboard in spring 2020 and performed an analysis, he wasn’t entirely happy with the state of freight operations— in particular less-than-truckload (LTL) freight, which represents 99% of the company’s business. “I felt it was time to engage with a new logistics partner who could drive some improvement to both cost structure and on-time delivery—which is the most important thing to us—as well as the reporting around it,” he says. UNIQUE SERVICE National Oak Distributors considers itself unique in the way it goes to market and how it services its customers. The company foots the bill for LTL freight 99.5% of the time and their customers generally expect a next-day delivery service level. “We were looking for a logistics company that had a robust piece of software we could use,” Beckman says. “We wanted to find a provider that would take the time to understand our business model
and be able to design a solution around our unique needs.” National Oak Distributors interviewed many potential companies and considered several RFPs and RFQs during the process. Although keeping an eye on the bottom line was a major part of the decision- making process, “it was more about holistically designing a solution that would meet the needs of our company and our customers,” Beckman notes. WANTED: CUSTOM TAILORING Enter Integrated Logistics 2000—or IL2000 as it is more commonly known. The full-service freight and logistics company has helped manufacturers, retailers, and other shippers gain visibility and control of their logistics operations since 1999. Founded by Kraig Cesar, who still owns the company and remains at the helm as CEO, IL2000 employs more than 60 people and serves clients around the globe. IL2000 relies on its own business intelligence (BI) platform—a proprietary transportation management system it built—to customize solutions for clients.
by June Allan Corrigan
July 2022 • Inbound Logistics 197
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