Football coaches say that focusing on the basics —"blocking and tackling" in football parlance—wins ballgames. The same could be said about making small shipments. That's certainly been the experience of NCH Corp. of Irving, Texas, whose mastery of shipping fundamentals has been the secret of its success when it comes to customer deliveries.

Excellence in distribution practices has allowed the maintenance-supplies vendor to use its logistics capabilities to gain a market advantage. NCH's prompt service and its ability to tailor deliveries to customers' requirements are an essential element of the company's strategy for beating the competition.

Each year, Logistics Management and NASSTRAC, the national organization of shippers of less-than-truckload (LTL) and parcel shipments, present the Shipper of the Year award to a NASSTRAC member in recognition of that company's achievements in transportation and distribution management. NCH's flexibility in meeting its customers' individual delivery needs has earned it this year's award, which was presented last month at the organization's annual fall conference in Dallas.

The third generation of the Levy family runs NCH Corp., whose annual sales generally range between $750 and $800 million. NCH makes and sells a wide range of maintenance, repair, and supply products. "We are the Wal-Mart of maintenance-supply products," says Matt Ehlinger, director of corporate transportation. "We have everything you need, be it chemical or medical supplies, industrial fasteners, even plumbing supplies."

NCH has five divisions, each of which serves a distinct market. Its Retail Products Group serves the pet-care market, while Mohawk Laboratories sells industrial maintenance chemicals. The Medco division furnishes sports and safety products; the Plumbing Products Group sells retail, industrial, and professional plumbing supplies; and its Partsmaster unit supplies the industrial fasteners market.

Although each division operates as an independent business unit, NCH negotiates corporate-wide contracts with its carriers. For domestic shipments, the company primarily works with two parcel carriers and 10 less-than-truckload carriers, most of them regional truckers. NCH also operates a small private fleet of about a dozen trucks.

About 98 percent of NCH's outbound traffic falls into the category of small shipments, and truckload carriers handle the remaining two percent. About 75 percent of the small shipment total moves via small package carrier, with the rest going via LTL. In terms of freight expenditures, though, small package shipments account for only 50 percent of NCH's transportation budget. About one-fifth of the company's shipments, by the way, are classified as hazardous materials. They require plenty of extra attention and oversight, Ehlinger says. "We do a lot of work to make sure that the product travels safely, and we stay in complete compliance with the regulations," he notes.

Over the past decade, customers have been asking for more customized delivery services from NCH's 10 distribution centers in the United States and Canada. "In order to squeeze out additional costs in their systems, customers require vendors to do certain things like communicate certain information ahead of time," Ehlinger says. "They are looking at how to make their supply chains as efficient as they can. Because of that, they can dictate things to their vendors."

Until recently, customers have mainly asked that NCH deliver products with specific documentation or packaging, says Transportation Manager Andrew Schreyer. Now, however, more and more of them are asking NCH to provide a "hands-free" service—in other words, asking the company to act more like a full-service maintenance provider rather than simply a purveyor of products and supplies.

For instance, a nursing home might request delivery of a package directly to a storage room or maintenance closet. An industrial customer might request that NCH deliver to a boiler room at a specific time and date. Some customers even request that the driver add a needed chemical to a boiler system and remove the empty container. "We're being asked to hook it up and put the product in place, so the maintenance guy doesn't touch the stuff," says Schreyer. "The full-service aspect is becoming more important to us."

NCH's response to such stringent customer demands has been to embrace those requirements. "Our strategy is to get the product to our customer in the time and manner that they want it," says Ehlinger. He and his colleagues believe that in order to meet their customers' unique requirements, the company must sharply execute the basics of shipping.

For example, the company packs all of its shipments in durable packaging that ensures damage-free delivery. It runs its own International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) lab to certify that its packaging meets industry standards, an important consideration for a company that moves a considerable amount of hazardous materials. Although that entails a great deal of expense and effort, it's worth it to be able to minimize disruptions for the customers, says Ehlinger.

Because its carriers often must carry out very specific delivery requirements, NCH also has built relationships with its providers founded on accountability and communication. First and foremost, the shipper clearly articulates its service requirements to its transportation service providers, Ehlinger says. Transportation managers meet to review their performance relative to meeting customers' needs. "We go through where we see service issues," he says. "A lot of the time it requires [the carriers'] input to figure out what's going on. If it requires us to sit down with a group of operations people from the carrier, we do it. It's basic stuff—the fundamental things you ought to be doing every day."

Schreyer notes that NCH approaches carrier relationships as a mutually beneficial partnership. "A large part of these conversations are driven by how to drive costs out of the system, not just for us but for the carrier as well," he explains. "Where it's inefficient or a problem for both of us, we look at how we can resolve it and simplify it so we can be easy to do business with and drive costs out of the systems on both sides." Adds Ehlinger: "We take it seriously with our core carrier group that they have to be part of the solution … "We would rather work with the carriers to make them successful than look for a reason to find another one."

That kind of open dialogue has been critical to ensuring that NCH does what its customers ask it to do, and do it on time. As a result of its close working relationships with the carriers, NCH now meets its delivery commitments 98 percent of the time. "What helps us do the basics well is that the carriers are comfortable asking us for help," says Ehlinger. "We try to respond when they do."

Besides working closely with carriers to meet customer requirements, NCH has taken other steps to upgrade its distribution operations. The company imports some of its products; about six months ago, managers decided to appoint one primary ocean consolidator to handle all of its inbound movements. Ehlinger believes that a single provider will yield efficiencies in customer service and import operations. He also expects that a single provider will help his company comply with the growing list of trade security programs, including the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT).

On top of that, NCH expects that a single provider will improve visibility of inbound shipments. "One of the primary reasons we did this in the international environment was to build the visibility we kept looking for," says Ehlinger. "To build it internally with limited IT services wasn't a realistic option for us. All these carriers have these systems built already, so our strategy is to piggyback."

Along with its drive to improve inbound visibility, NCH is looking at other ways to provide enhanced customer service that will differentiate the company from the competition. The transportation group now is tackling how to provide the same level of customized service for truckload deliveries as it does for its small package and LTL shipments.

"Whether a customized delivery to a kitchen in a nursing home or a pallet to a dock, we've got to be innovative and flexible," says Ehlinger, "It's a wonderful tool for our sales group to be able to provide certain customized service that our competitors haven't yet done."