In the current transportation market, we are seeing, through route guides and spot market opportunities, that there is a higher rate of available loads than there is available capacity. At the same time of this tight capacity, consumers are demanding products faster than ever before. One solution is the utilization of service centers. They can be a point of origin to distribute, to extract waste, and to optimize over-the-road time. Service centers can be helpful for offloading and reloading of products and for reorganizing. With the understanding that in order to do some of these things we may need to make concessions or changes upstream in our buying behavior (such as forecasting more efficiently and effectively) or downstream in other areas of our supply chains.
Robinson Fresh, a division of C.H. Robinson, has a network of service centers across the country to optimize supply chain efficiency. Closer staging enables companies to obtain fresher perishable and dry product deliveries.
“Service centers are often a key component of the supply chain engine– they keep the rest of the transportation or logistics processes functioning at a rate that keeps carriers on the road for only the amount of time needed,” Craig Mack, director of service centers for Robinson Fresh said. “This is a critical, but often forgotten part of the cold chain. We have worked with everyone from juice companies and ecommerce start-ups to our traditional focus areas of grower/shippers, wholesale, retail and foodservice, because we know the nuances to keep the engine running.”
Recently, Robinson Fresh expanded its capabilities into San Bernardino, California. Located 70 miles inland from the shipping ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, just off Interstate 215 in the Inland Empire corridor, the company said the San Bernardino service center is very close to both growing regions and forward distribution hubs and is a perfect location for point of origin consolidation.
All activities needed to maintain the cold chain are integrated into the facility: bringing in fresh products, sorting, testing temperature, checking size and color, pulping, repacking, and forward distribution in temperature controlled equipment. With storage of products and staging closer to final and point of origin destination, the company can pack to order, ensuring better quality, freshness, and shelf life.
For more information:
Liz Erickson Monson
Robinson Fresh
+1 (952) 937-6761