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Specialised Logistics Australia (SLA) - Case Study

Specialised Logistics Australia (SLA) have grown from a one-man, one-truck operation into a team of over 20 operating in both 3PL Warehousing and Transport. SLA manages freight for international clients utilising it's own vehicles, in addition to a network of over 20 on-forwarders.

Author:

Rob Te-Hau Fergusson

Linked to author page

Published:

June 29, 2018

 

SLA or Specialised Logistics Australia is a warehousing and transportation business based in Brisbane. We've been around for 25 years. It's been that time of growing from basically a one truck, one customer operation out of a small warehouse up to a business now where we have 10 of our own vehicles. We deliver freight nationally. We receive containers from overseas. We store in our 3,000 meter warehouse facility and distribute freight predominately into Brisbane retailers.

Quite a few of our customers are actually based overseas. We have customers in Canada, England, Indonesia. What those customers do is sell their products into retail businesses within Brisbane. Basically what we do is we receive that freight once it clears customs. Deliver it back to our warehouse. Unpack those containers. Pelletise the freight in to whatever configuration the client requires. Store that freight. Then deliver it into those businesses in Brisbane.

Now that the business has involved to the point where we're dealing basically with 10 different transport companies, and 50 different clients, is getting all those businesses to be able to communicate and pass information together is very important. Under the old system the customer had no access to the stock. If they wanted to know quantities, the status of their delivery they would have to call up our operations people who would then have to go into the system and then advise them over the phone as to the movement, or by email.

Now under the new system the customer actually has access into our stock holdings online. They can go in anytime they like, view their stock holdings, and even place their own sale orders or purchase orders, and plan movements of their stock directly themselves without our people being involved. This obviously has two benefits. One is it results in a cost saving to the customer as they're able to now do some of the primary admin themselves. Two, a time saving because they are no longer having to call and check on status. They can do it themselves, so that time saving is shared obviously by our customers and their own personnel who now got more time to get on with planning the movements of stock as opposed to chasing up queries.

Transcribed from video 

Visit their website - https://www.specialisedlogistics.com.au/

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