on loads that hadn’t arrived as expected at their destinations. “Phone calls alone could take up to half a day,” she says. At times, the logistics providers working with AFNA would pick up several loads, but not enough to ll an entire truck. The loads could remain in their yard for days, as the trucks were lled. Not surprisingly, the customers impacted would wonder where their orders were, Verdin says. The new transportation system lets dispatchers know if there’s room on a truck for additional products, or if it’s possible to combine loads. It provides this information with “a couple of clicks on the system,” Verdin says. The solution also offers near-real-time tracking and carrier oversight. This helps
management system (TMS) from Oracle. This transition ran into a few speed bumps, Verdin says, largely because the company’s previous transportation system was old enough that as parts were unplugged, some of the remaining functions started acting up. “There were band-aids on band-aids on band-aids,” she says. The work to implement a new system proved valuable. While the previous transportation system helped to book carriers, it offered no visibility. Verdin and her team had no ef cient way to determine, for instance, where AFNA’s trucks were, nor whether they’d picked up their loads. Instead, the customer service team and logistics coordinators would call to check
A DRP can help supply chain organizations determine the optimal allocation of products between plants and warehouses, minimizing both out-of- stocks and overstocking to boost service levels and reduce the need to relocate inventory. The Blue Yonder solution also synchronizes forecasting and planning with warehousing, transportation and order ful llment. At AFNA, the Blue Yonder deployment encompasses more than 550 nished goods produced at its plants and through co-packing partners, and that are transported to the distribution centers. TAMING THE MAVERICKS One challenge to the implementation was adjusting operations in an organization that included many “mavericks” who’d grown used to doing their own thing, Verdin notes. She and her team worked with EY to show their colleagues how the changes would impact the organization, and to reassure them that their jobs were safe. Sharing this information helped reduce concerns about the changes. The AFNA team also worked with EY to show senior management how the DRP solution provided a return on investment. In part, this was a result of boosting visibility to planning requirements from about six weeks to 18 months, Verdin says. Once the DRP was operating and generating bene ts, AFNA and EY worked to implement a transportation
From Chaos to Clarity THE CHALLENGES: Digitizing the largely manual resource planning system and logistics processes that hampered AFNA’s visibility, service, and eciency. THE SOLUTION: Working with EY, AFNA implemented a digital resource planning (DRP) solution from Blue Yonder and a transportation management solution (TMS) from Oracle. THE RESULTS: Significant reductions in warehouse recurring fees and the costs to redeploy products to other locations; a drop in inventory write-os; and a jump in on-time delivery performance. Together, the DRP and TMS have helped AFNA save about $6 million.
NEXT STEPS: Digitizing AFNA’s supply chain to the extent possible, including automating routine transactions, so employees can focus on decision-making.
An initial logistics assessment identified opportunities for AFNA to reduce costs and improve operations through Blue Yonder, an EY alliance partner whose software synchronizes forecasting and planning to warehousing, transportation and order fulfillment. Blue Yonder’s demand supply planning solution works seamlessly with AFNA systems to help plan how products should be sent to each distribution center or warehouse to meet consumer demand. From there, shipments are tracked until they arrive at each grocery store.
70 Inbound Logistics • April 2026
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