Direct Delivery
The Final Mile service provides customers with numerous time saving and cost eliminating benefits:
- Elimination of U.S. distribution center (DC) costs
- Reduction or elimination of inventory carrying costs
- Reduced damage risk as a result of less handling at destination
- Reduced transit time compared with cross-dock or DC model
- Reduced cost through utilization of multiple U.S. gateways (zone skipping)
- Order to delivery (end-to-end) visibility in one system
- Lower customs clearance costs through the use of consolidated international air waybills
In the past eight months, we have seen many major corporations intensifying their efforts to streamline and optimize their supply chains by improving efficiencies and removing excess costs.
To address these needs, Expeditors' Direct Delivery suite of services was specifically designed to help customers achieve supply chain improvements. One of the most preferred components of Direct Delivery is the Expeditors Final Mile program.
Final Mile is a DC-bypass program that enables customers to bulk ship multiple orders directly from non-U.S. manufacturing facilities to selected U.S. gateways under one consolidated international house air waybill (per gateway) for subsequent breakdown and distribution throughout the country to multiple final consignees.
This unique transportation arrangement combines Expeditors' international heavyweight capabilities with our domestic partner's (U.S. Integrator/Courier) superior U.S. network for a cost effective and seamless door-to-door transit. The Expeditors and courier's systems are fully integrated such that customers receive complete door-to-door shipment visibility at both the sales order and carton levels using Expeditors' exp.o visibility tool. This program is ideally suited to support door-to-door transit times ranging from 4-6 days, which greatly reduces the transit times traditionally associated with standard transportation and distribution models.
Another distinct advantage of this program is it requires only minimal I.T. support from the customer during the initial set up process. In order for us to generate an integrated Expeditors and courier label at origin, the customer must provide us with an Advance Shipment Notice with the appropriate sales order detail.
The process is fairly straightforward and simple. The customer sends us an electronic message that contains details such as order ID, carton ID or serial numbers, and delivery address. This information is populated into our system and is immediately available for viewing in the exp.o visibility tool. This system was specifically designed to integrate the shipment details between Expeditors and the courier as well as the mechanism for creating a combined shipment label at origin.
We then receive the freight at origin. The warehouse operator scans each carton into the system, which generates an integrated courier label that is affixed to each carton. This barcoded label includes the standard delivery information as well as the Expeditors international air waybill number. The origin branch then assembles the cartons and ships them as normal consolidated freight to the selected inbound U.S. gateways.
Upon 'wheels up' notification, the shipment is pre-cleared in the U.S. under the consolidated international air waybill. When the freight physically arrives at the inbound U.S. gateway, it is tendered directly to the courier. As the freight is moved to its final delivery address, the statuses are continuously updated and visible in exp.o.
From a visibility standpoint, customers can track their shipments in exp.o (via the Expeditors website) using any of the relevant reference numbers - order number, individual carton number, international house air waybill number, or any other number that the customer includes in the order process. Shipments are visible from the time that Expeditors receives the initial ASN through to the final delivery to the ultimate consignee. Customers can also enable their customer's access to their inbound orders using the same system.
We also offer invoicing flexibility. We can accommodate either a single invoice that includes the total door-to-door service or we can invoice the customer for the international segment (including customs clearance) and the courier can invoice for the domestic delivery per the customer's existing courier contract.
Expeditors has undertaken an extremely innovative approach to the traditional supply chain model. We provide our customers with options that include quicker order-to-delivery cycle times, while simultaneously offering opportunities to reduce existing supply chain costs.
For more information on the Expeditors Final Mile service offering, contact your local Expeditors representative.
Lance David
Global Air Product Development
lance.david@expeditors.com
