Can a 60 year-old distribution company learn a new way to improve its distribution and logistics operations?  In the case of Metro Beverages, Inc., it decidedly did, thanks to a strong strategic partnership between UPS Logistics Technologies and Insight Distribution Software.

Founded in 1945, Metro Beverages, Inc. is one of Northern Indiana’s leading beer distributors, and the third largest Miller and Coors distributor in the state. Serving over 900 customers at 1,020 locations in a 140-mile, five-county radius, Metro sells and delivers three million cases of beers, ales, micro-brews and alternative beverages a year.

Maintaining a reputation for high-quality customer service is a continuing priority for the company, which is why in 2001, Metro’s president, Robert Roule, decided to bring in UPS Logistics Technologies and its Roadnet Transportation Suite.  Roule’s goal was to improve his overall delivery operations while removing inefficiencies to reduce rising costs.  To implement and manage the new solution, Roule brought in Ryan Kruszynski, who is now Roadnet Transportation Manager for Metro Beverages, Inc.  

While working on the implementation with Metro’s operations manager, John Wade, Kruszynski recalls, “We saw right away how inefficient and overlapping our routes were.” After consolidating and balancing routes within Territory Planner’s new “smart” territories, Kruszynski notes that the company was able to reduce its 20 daily standard routes down to 13—while trimming the number of trucks in their fleet.

“In the first year alone, we started to see real savings on our investment with Roadnet Transportation Suite,” he says. “Since we’ve gone live with Roadnet, our drivers don’t have any wait time any more, even when they’re delivering to customers that open late.  Now we fill up our routes and our trucks every day.” 

Additional benefits were realized when Metro Beverages implemented MobileCast in 2003.  Acquiring the real-time capability to track and manage deliveries by exception resulted in reduced overtime for the company, notes Kruszynski.

Overall, the company reported across-the-board gains in service and savings, including:

• Reduction in mileage

• Total fleet reduction

• Reduction in routing time

• Reduction in overtime hours

• Increase in positive customer service

Metro Beverages is further leveraging these operational efficiencies through their use of Insight Distribution Software’s automated enterprise software suite for beverage distributors.  Metro currently employs Insight’s Routescape^®, which manages all core functions in distribution, including order taking, order processing, inventory control, and invoicing, as well as Routepad^®, a wireless mobile application that provides customer management and ordering functionality for sales staff and drivers in the field.

What’s more, due to a close strategic partnership between Insight and UPS Logistics Technologies, Routescape seamlessly shares next-day order information with Roadnet.  Roadnet uses this data to optimize all delivery routing, then sends the resulting information back to Routescape to generate invoices.  “The integration between the two solutions is powerful but simple,” says Kruszynski.  “Together, they provide a superior end-to-end solution for us.”

Thanks to outstanding partners like Insight, UPS Logistics Technologies has been able to leverage even greater value and results for Metro Beverages—by the power of two.