Wilcox & Flegel (W&F) has distributed fuel and lubricants since the 1930’s to over 4500 customers in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. W&F are leaders in their industry with over $500M annual revenue, over 100 trucks, 450 employees, and over 20 sites. To this day, W&F remains a family-run business with headquarters in Longview WA.
Situation
W&F purchased a Transportation Management System (TMS) in 2016 from a global vendor for its three trucking lines of business. In 2019, 3 years later, the TMS was still not successfully deployed to the first LOB. TMS vendor relations were poor. W&F needed the TMS to effectively manage its trucks, drivers, dispatch, and maintenance of transport operations.
Critical Issues
Wilcox and Flegel:
- Had spent over $1M in software licenses and maintenance on a system it was not using
- Had lost faith in the vendor
- Depended on an in-house developed dispatching tool
- Lacked in-house ability to manage this project
Solution
Ron worked with W&F and the vendor to do a post-mortem on the failed project and retrained the vendor on how to treat the client. Ron evaluated the vendor and the TMS, confirming that W&F did have the right vendor, by facilitating meetings with the vendor’s senior management, sales, sales engineering, project managers, and solution experts. Ron successfully managed a project rescue redeploying the vendor solution.
Results
The TMS product was successfully deployed to the first truck LOB in a six-month project. W&F and the vendor have become strong partners. The in-house dispatch tool was sunset. The TMS was key to managing costs during the Covid-19 crisis.