TLC has succeeded and grown by expanding far beyond its transportation roots. Grayson Walker talks with Bob Koerner.

The next time you enjoy a frosty Smirnoff Ice or a handful of Cheez-It snack crackers—maybe even at the same time—you can thank Total Logistic Control.

The company implements a wide range of end-to-end supply chain solutions for clients. It can handle any task, from transporting a single load or warehousing a few pallets to managing the entire transportation function or operating a dedicated manufacturing facility.

“We enable customers to focus on their brands while we provide their manufacturing and distribution services,” TLC’s Bob Koerner said of the tremendous growth on that side of the Zeeland, Mich.-based company.

“I’ve been in the logistics business for 29 years, and in the last 10 to 15 I’ve been saying that outsourcing is growing,” said Koerner, president and COO. “Customers are getting more sophisticated in their wants and needs; at the same time they are downsizing their manufacturing and logistics functions.”

TLC operates more than 30 manufacturing, warehousing, and transportation facilities for a broad range of customers.

Although TLC maintains a fleet of 450 trucks, transportation services comprise just one-third of company revenues. The majority of revenue is derived from the manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution sides of the business, Koerner said.

TLC solutions can stand alone or be integrated with other services as part of an end-to-end supply chain. It starts with the procurement process, buying and selling products used by customers, Koerner said.

Warehousing is another important facet of TLC’s offerings. The company operates public warehouses to accommodate dry, refrigerated, or frozen goods as well as dedicated warehouses that are usually designed and built for a particular customer and governed by a long-term contract.

Contract manufacturing is an exciting part of the business, Koerner said, allowing a company to focus on its core competencies such as branding and product development. For one client, TLC accepts just-picked vegetables, cleans them, processes them, then chops, bags, and delivers as the contract dictates.

So what about those Cheez-Its? For the Keebler division of Kellogg, TLC accepts bulk shipments of the cheese crackers, repackages them, and ships them back out.

When Guinness UDV North America found itself unable to keep up with demand for Smirnoff Ice, the company strengthened its relationship with TLC, purchasing a brewing facility in Allentown, PA and turning it over to TLC’s Dedicated Facility Solutions division. Guinness already had employed TLC to reengineer the company’s US logistics system.

In underless than four months, TLC completely retrofitted the facility; hired and trained more than 250 workers selected from 5,000 applications; installed new production, ordering, and logistics systems; and started the new production lines with shrink-wrapped cases of Smirnoff Ice leaving the facility.

TLC now provides turnkey production, bottling, and facility management, as well as transportation, warehousing, order fulfillment, and supply chain management for Guinness.

The company’s transportation solutions include more than just delivering merchandise. TLC makes dedicated runs for such clients as Yoplait, Stryker Medical (warehousing and delivering stretchers sold to hospitals and surgical centers throughout the US on specially designed trailers), and Krispy Kreme, delivering those delectable treats to stores in Chicago and St. Louis.

Diageo, the world’s largest producer of alcoholic drinks, is TLC’s largest customer. Among the responsibilities TLC handles is distributing the company’s imported Guinness and Smirnoff products, accepting them at the port, warehousing them, and shipping product to customers.

TLC operates as a subsidiary of the publicly traded Total Logistics Inc., which is traded on NASDAQ. The other company subsidiary, Zero Zone, makes refrigerated and freezer display cases and sells them to the largest retail grocery chains, Koerner said. TLC represents approximately 80% of TLC’s revenues, he added.

Logistics is a competitive business, said Koerner, who joined TLC four years ago, after TLC purchased the company Koerner started in 1998. Koerner’s background in third-party logistics, transportation, warehousing, and contract manufacturing dates to 1975, and he’s learned that people and an effective solution make the difference.

“This business is all about people,” Koerner said. “Our competitors have the same trucks, the same forklifts. The difference is in the way you manage people.”

Knowledge of logistics throughout the supply chain is the other TLC difference, Koerner noted. “Because we operate across the supply chain, many times we have a better solution for a distribution problem than a traditional transportation company,” Koerner. “Trucking is just one piece of it.”

To make sure the corporate culture flows from management to the company’s 2,700 far-flung employees, top corporate officials meet with facility managers and their direct reports twice yearly, Koerner said. Not only do managers discuss company strategy, goals, successes, and failures during these meetings, they also specifically address the company culture and how to improve it.

The company’s STARS program (safety, teamwork, appearance, results, and sanitation) encourages employees to focus on their jobs and on potential improvements to TLC, from the landscaping at the front of a terminal to ways to do their work more safely. Last year, the facilities teams turned in more than 400 action items, Koerner said.

Likewise, the PIT program (performance improvement team) focuses on process improvements. It features a NASCAR theme, with crew chiefs and pit stops to keep the excitement, Koerner said.

Selling the people side of the business is one of the largest challenges TLC faces, Koerner said. “Our goal is to work every day to do what we say we’ll do, and what the customer is paying us to do,” Koerner said.

Whether that’s trucking a single load of freight, repackaging Cheez-Its, or running a client’s manufacturing operations, TLC’s employees keep their focus firmly trained on delighting customers.

Grayson Walker, grwalker@mindspring.com, is a freelance writer based in Atlanta.

Contact Information:
Carl Melville
Vice President, Marketing
Holland, Michigan
616.494.7740
Carl.Melville@TotalLogistic.com