ABF - Materials Handling Optimization

ABF Freight System Inc, an international $1 billion-a-year company is the fourth largest motor shipping company in the US, with approximately 300 terminals around the country.

ABF concentrates on long haul general commodities freight, involving primarily LTL shipments. According to the company, "Quality at ABF is a process - not a program! It is on going and without an end," and "At ABF, we will meet the agreed upon requirements of our internal and external customers. Our commitment is to achieve total customer satisfaction through error free work."

The Challenge
ABF's industrial engineers were tasked with finding the most economical systems to optimize dock operations and manage completion times. Available manpower, forklifts and open bays needed to be coordinated to handle incoming and outgoing shipments in the most efficient manner. Additionally, union regulations brought further elements of consideration requiring solid justification for personal schedule changes.

The industrial engineering team, used to DOS based, unwieldy and expensive simulation programs, commenced research to find alternatives to help them determine the optimal processes to implement. ABF spoke with several simulation companies to compare software features and price. SIMUL8's low risk price combined with its extensive feature list convinced the team that it was well worth investigating.

The Solution
After entering pages of data from Excel spreadsheets that gave a minute-by-minute analysis of the company's dock operations, ABF engineer, Jamie Anawaty, was pleasantly surprised at the accurate data output provided by SIMUL8's simulation models. "I've been extremely happy with the results we've had using SIMUL8. It was easy to use, and the program was able to synthesize the massive amounts of data we plugged into the models," he commented. After six weeks of model building, ABF finished its validation model and began the testing phase. When compared to the time it would have taken to garner the same results from other simulation programs, SIMUL8 came out far ahead. "I was able to read the book and immediately start building simulations," Anawaty added.

The Result
The true value of SIMUL8, according to ABF is that the industrial engineers now have the ability to accurately forecast and illustrate how the changes they recommend will improve ABF's operations.

States Anawaty, "The results forecasted by SIMUL8 and the actual results of operational changes match. We now have proof, which has allowed us to build up trust and credibility with upper management. SIMUL8 has given us ammunition for change, and everyone is more comfortable with our recommendations."

ABF is planning to expand their simulation applications to include the transportation travel times to further refine the materials handling models.