Introduction

A fast-growing, multi-site industrial manufacturer engaged PraxiChain to assess its distribution and transportation operations as it set its sights on doubling the size of the business. Leadership wanted an objective, “eyes-wide-open” view of what its supply chain would need to support that growth before committing to new facilities or new technology.

At A Glance

In six weeks of discovery, PraxiChain built the organization’s first full view of its end-to-end distribution network cost and delivered a phased roadmap across people, process, and technology. The work identified the opportunity to avoid roughly 17% of projected network cost as the business scales and improve inventory turns by nearly 40%, creating room to grow within the footprint the company already has. The findings led directly to recommendations for follow-on engagement to begin building the foundation.

Requirements

  • Assess transportation and distribution performance across inbound, inter-facility, and outbound flows at every plant and distribution location
  • Establish a baseline view of total network cost — warehousing, transportation, and inventory carrying cost
  • Provide an objective recommendation on transportation management system (TMS) readiness and how to sequence technology investment
  • Deliver a prioritized roadmap leadership could act on immediately, separating quick wins from structural change

The Challenge

The company’s products were in demand, and the business had been building ahead to meet it. That success put real pressure on its distribution footprint: production and inventory were growing faster than the warehouse space designed to hold them, and each location found its own creative ways to keep product moving—additional storage sites, trailers, and yard space added as needs arose.

The organization’s greatest strength was its people. Long-tenured, highly capable teams ran each site, and many of them knew exactly what “good” looked like. But much of that expertise lived in individual know-how rather than shared standards, and each site operated with its own processes and decision-making. Leadership recognized that the model that got them here would need to evolve to take them to twice the size.

The engagement was originally framed around transportation strategy and TMS readiness. Leadership wanted to ensure any system decision was grounded in operational reality, rather than buying technology first and fitting the business around it.

PraxiChain Solution

Over six weeks, PraxiChain conducted dozens of stakeholder interviews spanning supply chain, manufacturing, finance, IT, customer service, and warehouse leadership, and completed site visits across four operating regions. The team evaluated distribution operations, transportation management, network flows, information availability and performance metrics, planning processes, and the IT environment at each location.

Because much of the operating and financial data leadership needed didn’t yet exist in a single place, PraxiChain helped model it — assembling the company’s first total network cost view across warehousing, transportation, and inventory carrying cost, along with cost per unit of throughput, cost per square foot, inventory turns, and cost as a share of revenue. That baseline gave leadership a common fact base for every decision that followed.

The analysis surfaced a key insight that reshaped priorities: this is predominantly an inbound supply chain, with roughly two-thirds of transportation activity and space requirements tied to materials flowing into and between facilities to support manufacturing. That meant the biggest wins would come from material flow, inventory accuracy, and planning — not outbound freight alone.

PraxiChain delivered recommendations across three dimensions:

  • Organization: a centralized, end-to-end supply chain governance model, including a new logistics leadership role and a continuous improvement team — pairing new resources with veteran staff as “super users” to turn deep site expertise into standard operating procedures
  • Process: standardized warehouse SOPs across all sites, scan-to-move inventory discipline, formal slotting and dock scheduling, capacity guardrails built into planning, consolidation of overflow storage, and a corporate routing guide supported by a carrier RFP
  • Technology: a foundation-first sequence built jointly with IT — transaction integrity and standardized flows first, then warehouse capability within the existing ERP platform, with TMS following once the business can take full advantage of it

These were organized into a 13-month roadmap: a near-term “Building the Foundation” phase covering network flow optimization, initial operations improvements, key hires, a planning assessment, a joint IT roadmap, and enterprise KPIs and financial dashboards — followed by longer-term work in S&OP design, order-to-cash, SKU segmentation, and full future-state network optimization to support the company’s next major facility investment.

Results

The assessment gave leadership a clear, quantified picture of what growth will require — and where the value is. PraxiChain identified the opportunity to avoid roughly 17% of projected network cost as revenue doubles, by holding distribution cost as a share of revenue steady rather than letting it climb with volume. A one-turn improvement in inventory — nearly 40% — would free significant working capital, reduce reliance on overflow storage, and create capacity for growth without immediately adding facilities.

Just as importantly, the work gave leadership confidence in the sequence. Rather than rushing into a standalone TMS, the organization now has a fact-based path that builds process and data discipline first and gets more from the ERP platform it already runs — so each future technology investment lands on a solid foundation.

The roadmap outlines a multi-phase supply chain transformation built to support the company’s growth.

Ready to make room for your next stage of growth?

Contact PraxiChain to talk about a Distribution & Transportation Management Assessment for your organization.