LEAN SOLUTIONS

LEAN Solutions Create Enterprise ExcellenceHelping Our Clients Achieve Competitive Advantage through Continuous ImprovementIs continuous improvement a corporate initiative for your company? Transportation Insight’s sister company, Total Insight, designs customized, enterprise-wide LEAN solutions to help businesses navigate turbulent economic times while also improving operational performance, execution strategies and corporate culture.

Beyond manufacturing process improvements, how can LEAN best practices boost performance? By combining LEAN principles with unsurpassed logistics engineering expertise and state-of-the-art technology, our Solutions Teams help companies maximize profit by removing waste, reducing cost, streamlining processes and achieving supply chain excellence.

With one of the world’s 200 Shingo Prize Examiners on staff leading a team of LEAN professionals, Transportation Insight truly provides cutting-edge supply chain expertise and continuous improvement to positively impact your bottom line.

Have you considered a LEAN warehouse assessment or a LEAN supply chain assessment? Through a non-invasive, diagnostic approach, we help clients evaluate their value stream and recommend innovative solutions to improve productivity and overall quality.

Our LEAN methodology eliminates non-value added steps that contribute to inventory carrying costs, longer lead times, quality defects, as well as increased labor costs within the extended supply chain.

From the shipping docks and shop floors to middle management and corporate leaders, our business-wide LEAN solutions impact the entire company. Taking the Wholistic Path™, organizations can benefit from building continuous improvement, cultural enhancement and strategic execution. By focusing on these three key areas to achieve enterprise excellence, we help companies drive positive and lasting change.

Continuous Improvement › LEAN Assessment › Value Stream Mapping › Kaizen Events › LEAN Training and Certification › Six Sigma Solutions

Supply Chain Management › LEAN Supply Chain Assessment › LEAN Warehouse Assessment › LEAN Co-Managed Logistics › Financial Settlement › Transportation Management System (TMS)

› Data Management and Business Insight

Cultural Enhancement › Leading at the Speed of Trust Workshops

› Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Workshops

› On-boarding Tools › Team Building

Strategic Execution › Hoshin Kanri – Strategic Development › Executive LEAN Consulting › LEAN Accounting

Through introspection, redirection and best-in-class LEAN solutions, we help businesses build high-trust, sustainable workplace communities. Across companies and across continents, we partner with people who think LEAN.

Are you ready for the next step in your LEAN journey? We can help you dominate your market!

©2012 Transportation Insight, LLC. All rights reserved. LS Rev.2 09/2012

Key Considerations in Partnering to LEAN Your Supply ChainAs you look to improve your supply chain, will it just be about the numbers for the moment? Or do you want a TEAM that “thinks” about your processes daily to help you execute your vision?

When manufacturers, retailers and distributors consider a 3PL partner to help them hit their numbers, where do they begin in the selection process? The most successful companies are turning to 3PLs that lead the way in national supply chain management and LEAN Performance Solutions. They look for logistics experts who are continuously expanding their services and growing their business. An optimal 3PL will be challenged with sharing techniques, building the best team and servicing more interesting companies (and people) than ever before.

Supply chain management companies specialized in LEAN are rapidly changing to meet market demand. The most effective organizations improve process, culture and execution strategies for their clients. Effective use of supply chain resources allows organizations to reclaim time and money spent on non-value added processes. Supply chain management tools include a stand-alone Transportation Management System (TMS) and a range of data management options. But isn’t this what hundreds of companies in the USA (and abroad) claim to provide?

Yes. However, the secret is to find a company with strategic services which focus extensively on LEAN supply chain expertise in logistics operations, performance management and sourcing. This unique combination gives clients something that’s not easily found in the LEAN or logistics communities. Specialized LEAN supply chain management firms TRULY do focus on the entire value stream from customers to suppliers. They not only “map” the process, but also have the technology, process and PEOPLE that can affect change in any part of a client’s business model.

As you begin to learn more about the corporate 3PL teams you are considering, you’ll have to go much deeper than process to know what makes them unique. Evaluating the “what” is important, but it’s the “who” that makes the best 3PLs quite different. Look for a team of leaders and specialists who share a culture of dedication, excellence, expertise and fun — a smart group of “A” players who set the bar high and exceed expectations with humble confidence. Seek 3PLs who have assembled not only one of the most talented teams (from top to bottom) in the market place, but who’ve also assembled a team that believes they can help any company, any size, anywhere, with a culture of “continuous improvement.”

If it was just about savings, the best 3PLs would get lost in the myriad of companies. If it was just about teaching and implementing, they’d get swallowed by the larger consulting firms. However, because the best 3PLs CARE about their clients and focus mostly on their needs, they are continuously having to improve everything they do daily. “Caring” for the client leads the top 3PLs to do things others are not willing to do. It leads them to continuously ask themselves “why are we doing this?” And, it motivates them to try something else that will affect their client’s bottom line (and culture) in the right direction.

Why should you pick a LEAN logistics solutions provider with a focus on integrity, client services, human capital and continuous improvement? Because the best 3PLs feel they are making a long-term, positive impact on their clients; building a powerful team that shares the same motivation to drive excellence; and working for a company that thinks “people” are the greatest asset on the balance sheet.

Transportation Insight offers LEAN consulting as a value-added strategic service through its sister company, Total Insight. Eric Lail is Total Insight’s VP of LEAN Performance Solutions. Lail is one of the world’s 250 Shingo Prize Examiners and a LEAN supply chain expert.

Eric Lail, Vice President of LEAN Performance Solutions, Global Shingo Prize Examinerelail@t-insight.com

328 First Avenue NW • Hickory, North Carolina 28601 • 828.485.5000 • www.transportationinsight.com