Jan 31
philsnyNorthbound Forwarding Canada, Clients, Northbound Forwarding, Shipments, USA, WMS
ProPack is excited to be launching the new and enhanced version of our Northbound Forwarding program today. We’ve offered this program for over three years now, but today it gets a facelift with new computers, new processes and a new more throughput friendly location within our warehouse. The main reason for these changes are the new dozen or so Northbound Forwarding clients that we are equally as excited to welcome into the ProPack family.
Our Northbound Forwarding program facilitates the receipt, cross dock and couriering of packages and pallets being shipped from the US to our clients in Canada. Our clients first give our address to their customers in the US. These customers then send their shipments directly to ProPack. We receive the shipments and input them into our WMS (Warehouse Management System). Our clients then instruct us on which shipments are cleared and ready to be couriered across the border. We then scan the selected shipments out of our system, palletize them and courier the combined shipment to our client’s requested location in Canada.
The entire process is visible online and all packages/pallets are scanned in and out of our WMS system.
This saves our clients and their customer on international shipping fees and provides a simple straightforward solution for our client’s northbound shipments. Also, the majority of packages that are received into our facility are processed and couriered up to Canada the very same day. Not only is our program cost-effective and accurate, it’s also fast.
We’re excited to be expanding this area of our 3PL (3rd Party Logistics) operation and look forward to providing future clients with the same level and quality of service as we continue to grow.
For more information please visit our website at www.propack.com.
Jan 24
philsnyFreight Forwarding 3PL, Canada, Freight Forwarding, LTL
ProPack specializes in 3PL (3rd Party Logistics) and one of the areas we focus on is forwarding LTL (Less than Truck Load) shipments. This process of Freight Forwarding encompasses the movement of palletized shipments from point A to point B. ProPack has an experienced team of freight forwarding specialists who use custom built software to forward dozens of shipments a day through the United States, Canada and worldwide.
Let’s say you have a pallet of product sitting in Miami, FL and you need it transported to Richmond, BC. Now you could drive down and pick it up yourself, but that would take at least a week and cost you in airfare, truck rental and gas. Or you could try to arrange to have the shipment picked up, put on a plan or truck, shipped to the US Canadian border, cleared through customs and delivered to your doorstep in Richmond. However, this requires knowing which carrier to call for the different parts of the journey and how to deal with customs brokers.
Your other alternative is to call a Freight Forwarder. Forwarders are familiar with all shipping lanes and carrier options. They’ll make the calls and setup the pickup and deliveries. They will also either clear the shipments themselves or partner with a customs brokerage firm. All this is done by the forwarder within the time frame you, the customer, specify. Then after the shipment is delivered the forwarder will send you one bill for the service.
At ProPack we specialize in being very competitive at Freight Forwarding. We’ll forward your shipment, track it along the way, confirm delivery and charge you less than you could do it on your own. Your time is valuable. Let us save you time, money and the headache of trying to manage your own freight.
For more information please visit our website at www.propack.com.
Jan 17
philsnyCarrier Rates Book Rate, Carrier Rates, Discount Programs, FedEx, UPS, Volume Discounts
Book rate is the base factor carriers use for their ground, air and international billing. These are the rates you’ll get off www.fedex.com, www.ups.com and www.dhl.com. As a business if you setup a new account with any of these carriers, book rate is likely what you’ll be paying until you’re able to ship enough volume to start earning discounts.
At ProPack we ship on behalf of our clients via our own ProPack accounts. Thus we’re able to build on the combined volume of our many client to negotiate good discount programs with the different carriers. We then are able to offer better discounts to our clients than they’d get going directly to the carriers.
Saving our clients on their shipping is another part of the supply chain in which ProPack’s services add value .
For more information please visit our website at www.propack.com.
Jan 10
philsnyOrder Fulfillment, WMS DHL, FedEx, Manifest System, Order Fulfillment, Packaging, Picking, Scanning, UPS, USPS, WMS
Orders are the lifeblood of any Fulfillment Warehouse. At ProPack we are not in the business of storing product, but in the business of shipping orders. Thus we’ve worked hard over the years to build custom technology to facilitate the path of an order through our system. We’ve done this not only to make our internal processes more efficient but to build value for our clients through faster service and greater supply chain visibility.
First, orders need to be input into our WMS system – www.p3pl.com (ProPack 3rd Party Logistics) . This can be done through web-to-web transactions, direct online entry, by emailing an Excel sheet, or by using our QuickBooks interface.
Once orders are in P3PL an order release specialist uses our automated system to allocate inventory to the order. If problems arise in this process such as inventory shortages the client is notified immediately.
Next the order is taken to one of our experienced order pickers who (again using P3PL) scan the order off the shelf by location, and lot number if necessary. Scanning product reduces errors by close to 1 in 10,000.
After scanning, the contents of the order are taken to the packaging stations where they are arranged into their shipping packages.
Finally the closed and sealed packages are processes on our customized multi-carrier manifest system for FedEx, UPS, USPS or DHL. After they are processed packages are then picked up by their respective carriers and leave our building.
However, the process does not stop there. Each evening nightly transaction reports are sent out containing all shipping and inventory transactions for the day. As well, all information is available on www.p3pl.com to any of our clients.
The path of our client’s orders through our system is a well thought out science that let’s our clients get product to their customers as quickly and accurately as possible. This builds value for ProPack, adds value to our client’s and delivers value to our client’s customers.
For more information please visit our website at www.propack.com.
Jan 03
philsnyCarrier Rates, Order Fulfillment DHL, Dim Factors, Dimensional Weights, FedEx, Rate Increases, Shipments, UPS
Every year FedEx, UPS and DHL update their rates. These include the base rates customers pay to ship a certain weight package to a certain destination as well as accessorial fees like extended area, residential, oversized, Saturday delivery, etc. It has become commonplace in the past five years to see between a four to five percent annual increase in rates. Ironically, all three carriers always raise their rates by the same amount.
The difference this year is that FedEx, UPS and DHL have also all changed their dim factors, or the number used to calculate dimensional weight. Because of the space packages take up in trucks and airplanes carriers rate their packages at the higher of actual or dimensional weight. Thus if you have a five pound package the size of a coffee table you’re going to pay much more than the five pound rate.
Since the 90′s carriers have used a dim factor of 194 for domestic and 166 for international shipments. This means that the dim weight for a 20x20x20 package would be (20x20x20)/194 = 41.24 lbs going domestic and (20x20x20)/166 = 48.19 lbs going international.
However, as of the beginning of this year all three carriers have changed their domestic factor from 194 to 166 and their international factor from 166 to 139. For our 20x20x20 package this increases the domestic dim by 16.8% to 48.19 and the international dim 19.4% to (20x20x20)/139 = 57.55.
So not only has UPS, FedEx and DHL raised their rates by around 5.1% this year, but they also raised their rates for dimmed out packages by another 16 to 19%. I guess they didn’t get the word that this country is trying to crawl out of a recession.
At ProPack we work with our clients to find the best possible shipping solution for their business needs. Not only to we pool our collective bargaining to provide great rates to our Fulfillment clients, but we are constantly on the lookout of inexpensive ways for our clients to deliver product to their customers.
There are other alternatives to standard ground and air shipment services. UPS has Mail Innovations and FedEx has Smart Post. Both these services ship ground to the Post Office nearest the consignee and then deliver via the US Postal System. They are both less expensive than ground and are not affected by dimensional weights.
UPS, FedEx and DHL like to raise their rates each year. At ProPack we work with our clients year after year to ensure they are getting the lowest rates for the services they need to delivery their product on time.
For more information please visit our website at www.propack.com.
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