Who's Who in Logistics and Supply Chain Management - Armstrong ...

Monterrey, Guadalajara and the Mexico City area. Revenues are evenly split between VAWD and transportation activities.
Dedicated contract carriage in Mexico takes a slightly different form because of Mexican laws prohibiting ownership of trucking
operations by non-Mexicans. Ryder leases tractors and trucks to small Mexican trucking companies who then contract with Ryder to
provide services. About 300 tractors, 50 trucks and 500 trailers are involved in DCC-like carriage operations. Ryder Mexico equipment is
leased to Mexican customers, including Mexican carriers. Some of these carriers dedicate equipment to Ryder and Ryder utilizes it
interchangeably for its customers.
Ryder’s 25 locations in Mexico include nine warehouses it operates and 16 customer plants. The warehouses are all pretty new. They are
large boxes with modern layouts, clean and well kept. Most involve pallet and carton picking. A few are radio-frequency (RF) facilities. A
couple have piece picking, kitting, etc. Ryder manages about 1,000 truck border crossings a day. Transportation management planning is in a
280,000 square foot warehouse near Mexico City.
Carrier Corporation – Mexico
Ryder supports three Carrier air conditioner related operations in the Maquiladora rich area in and around Monterrey. It also runs an
inbound warehouse, a vendor managed inventory (VMI) space in another warehouse, an outbound distribution facility, and maintains a large
yard for loading oversized units for commercial buildings.
At the Carrier residential air conditioner factory in Monterrey, Ryder has 110 employees integrated with 1,100 Carrier employees. Ryder’s
personnel handle receiving, manufacturing (JIT/Kanban) support and shipping. They wear distinguishing red shirts. I saw 10 of them
participating in a quality/performance meeting with 25 or so Carrier employees. Ryder’s six-sigma quality program (ACE – Analyze, Chart
the course, Execute flawlessly) matches well with Carrier’s quality program which by coincidence also is referred to as ACE (Achieve
Competitive Excellence).
Carrier uses eight lines to produce 2,500-3,500 units per day. Operations cover six days with two shifts on the five air conditioner lines
and one shift on the three coil lines.
Ryder handles a significant portion of inbound with dedicated and managed transportation. About 80% of materials are local. Ryder also
does outbound transportation execution in this location. Transportation planning is done in Mexico City.
While this factory is 15 years old, it is clean, well maintained and modern in appearance.
At Carrier’s commercial unit manufacturing plant, 20% of the employees are Ryder’s. This new, modern facility is used to turn out
customized air conditioning units for large buildings like Target stores. Consequently, there are thousands of part changes each month and
about 400,000 parts overall. The facility is 220,000 square feet.
Ryder does all phases of the materials management for Carrier. It provides sequencing, kitting, picking and packing, and handles VMI.
Ryder uses ProAct as its warehouse management system (WMS) for these operations. RF will be implemented as Carrier gets SAP
implemented. For the commercial unit, Ryder handles inbound and outbound transportation using DCC as necessary.
The third Carrier facility we visited was the Stiva parts warehouse. This 180,000 square foot operation handles parts and materials for all
three Carrier factories. Inventory is managed on a consigned basis and moved to the plants on an as needed, JIT basis. Parts for similar
products are maintained in blocks for efficiency.
From what we saw in Monterrey, Ryder and Carrier have a true partnership where their quality driven joint efforts turn out top-notch
products.
General Motors
Ryder has three operations for GM in Mexico. (Overall, Ryder has support operations for GM at 17 of its 28 locations). The Mexican
operations are:
• Yard Management – Ramos Arizpe
• Yard Management – Silao
• Yard Management – Toluca
• Inbound Support Warehouse – Ramos Arizpe
• Inbound Support Warehouse – Silao
A major surprise in these GM locations is Ryder’s railroad switching operations. Ryder has five engines in Mexico used to move cars in
the loading process.
Ryder’s ASL (alternative storage location) inbound plant at Saltillo (Ramos Arizpe) is 180,000 square feet. It’s a container break facility for
supplying the GM assembly plant at Ramos Arizpe by updating customer systems electronically with the information created by Ryder’s
ProAct, RF capable WMS. The plant turns out 1,100 vehicles a day. The vehicles are Saturn’s SUV (VUE) and a small Chevy (CMA) sedan
for the Mexican domestic market.
Ryder’s yard management services are: 1) to drive the cars from the assembly plant to a large yard; 2) to handle car loading and shipment;
3) to make sure the finished inventory is taken care of and customer ready. At any given time, there are about 10,000 cars in inventory in the
yard. Loading is an efficient, careful and orderly process. Cars are driven into place and secured for movement. These operations are
controlled by a state-of-the-art information system with RF capability spanning a 45-plus acre yard. Ryder’s yard management service
operates in all GM Mexico plants.
British American Tobacco
Ryder’s operations for British American Tobacco (BAT) are a textbook example of supply chain management.
The tobacco is raised in Virginia. It is shipped to the Maquiladora plant in Monterrey where it is made into cigarettes. The cigarettes are
shipped via truck to seven distribution points in Canada. In Canada, Ryder provides DCC delivery and transportation management to stores
and distributors. The BAT Canadian operation operates under the brand name Imperial Tobacco.
Ryder’s BAT warehouse is a new, food grade facility with 210,000 square feet. There is a protective cooler area of 60,000 square feet.
Product is controlled and shipped on a first in first out (FIFO) basis to Canada. In addition, Ryder manages the packaging material
(cardboard) for the plant. Cardboard is shuttled to the plant as needed and seven loads a day are brought back.
This RF facility uses WebSphere for its WMS. Manhattan’s PkMS is used for Canadian distribution. RF reading devices are Symbol guns
and pallets have license plates.
Ryder uses five tractors and 10 trailers for the dedicated shuttles. Celadon is the primary outbound carrier.
16th Edition
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