Transplace updates its TransMATCH co-shipping service

Non asset-based third-party logistics (3PL) services provider Transplace recently announced that it has expanded its TransMATCH co-shipping service, which provides its customers and partners with the opportunity to consolidate freight through collaboration with multiple shipper companies and increase delivery frequency to targeted customers while keeping costs in check.

Transplace cited myriad benefits of TransMATCH, including: transportation costs savings; reduced working capital; inventory improvement; greater order fill rates; more frequent deliveries; increased flexibility to support customers; reduced dock congestion and delays; and reduced carbon footprint.

In an interview with LM at the Council for Supply Chain Management Professionals Annual Conference in Denver, Matt Menner, Transplace senior vice president, strategy, said that the genesis of TransMATCH goes back to 2010, through a relationship between Transplace Mexico and Daltile, a manufacturer and marketer of ceramic tile and natural stone products used in residential and commercial design and construction.

“We started to find opposite freight characteristic shippers and ended up matching freight with them and then when we found an appropriate amount of freight volume moving in complimentary lanes we started an operating relationship with them and we became the orchestrator of all the freight movements and began with test loads that have gone from hundreds to now thousands with this execution model,” he said.

Other companies also involved in the early stages of TransMATCH cited by Menner were Whirlpool and Mexico-based Convermax.

This initiative went from a pilot to a production operation and was then subsequently branded and commoditized by Transplace, he said.

Menner said there are two versions of TransMATCH. One is based on co-located manufacturing with a buffer warehouse that provides flexibility to pull, mix, and match product for optimal loading and then goes on to distribution channels.

The other version, which Menner said is beyond pilot and into production later this year and into 2014, focuses on consumer packaged goods going to retail, with primary launch customers including Colgate, Del Monte, and Clorox, among others.