Performance Evaluation of LTL
Monitoring and evaluating your LTL logistics service provider’s performance on a regular basis is important for business success if your business is termed SME. Remember LTL service providers do not offer any products, only intangible services. There are certain conditions needed to effectively conduct the performance evaluation. A target of expected services needs to be set well in advance to evaluate the performance based on comparison.
The first thing to consider while evaluating your LTL logistics service provider’s performance is the service area versus the coverage area. Your work areas need to be in the primary coverage area of the LTL logistics service provider to get an operating edge. Your goods must be moved on a direct line or by single carrier to lessen the associated transportation risks and claims arising from adverse circumstances. Ask them to give the route matrix of their function, check your workstation and detail how the service provider suits your plan within their matrix. This does not require mastery of operational management or inventory control systems. Putting the matrix on a table and placing a transparent sheet with your work stations on it can easily give you an idea of how economically your goods are moving for you. Use this guideline to assess the performance for all your special case or priority services.
Another approach is customer satisfaction survey report analysis. Nowadays most of the LTL providers have, at least in principle, adopted this policy to regularly conduct some type of satisfaction survey to see their overall performance for better optimization of resources and skill sets. If the customer satisfaction survey report is not readily available or made public by the LTL providers for reasons of business privacy, ask for the roaster. A roaster report for LTL providers is a check list, solely for internal use, where details with traceable IDs for each shipment can be found. It is a record of the time of departure, transits, and receiving schedule. If you calculate the required time for the goods to move from one station or facility to another facility you can easily evaluate service performance by your LTL logistic service provider.
It completely depends on the LTL service buyer to assess price performance. If you give greater importance to delivery service than pricing, this consideration of performance evaluation is not for you. But if you want to evaluate the price performance you have decisions. Check the billing system, terms of payment, flexibility with payment terms, accuracy of bill statements, authentic realization of the billing statements, discounts, tariffs structure, revision scope of tariffs, and waivers. Certainly the purpose of your LTL logistic service provider’s performance evaluation is for you to r attain a better situation without incurring additional costs. See the entire package of pricing. Remember that LTL service providers are doing business. They have their own price structure and they offer benefits depending on different situations similarly to any other business. So explore it and compare it with your own logical framework to determine if you should maintain the business relationship.