Digging Deep: How TLI Solved a Chemical Manufacturer’s Biggest Logistics Frustrations
When transportation costs ballooned to 10% of total overhead and manual operations created daily friction, this chemical manufacturer needed freight management that actually worked. Not empty promises. Here’s how TLI delivered.
High Tonnage, Mounting Overhead, and Zero Visibility
Misco Products, a Reading, PA-based chemical manufacturer, faced a freight management crisis where transportation costs spiked 10% of their total overhead. Despite these high costs, the company was still manually handling all logistics operations. Including cumbersome shipment tracking and year-over-year carrier negotiations.
Previous experiences with 3PLs had left them deeply skeptical. Other providers had made “empty promises” of savings they simply couldn’t deliver.
“We’d been burned before. Other 3PLs promised savings but delivered frustration. We needed someone who would actually listen to how our operation worked.”
Success by the Numbers
7,000+
Shipments processed through TLI’s ViewPoint TMS platform
50%
Cost savings on customer service personnel by eliminating additional hires
6 Wks
Reduction in time required to obtain freight bills and determine accurate pricing
A Phased, Tech-First Approach
Translogistics (TLI) broke the “sour 3PL perception” by listening to Misco Product’s unique challenges rather than just hunting for immediate rate cuts. TLI’s approach to chemical manufacturer freight management starts with understanding the operation first, then finding the technology to fit it. That meant a phased integration of the ViewPoint TMS, with on-floor training for a seamless transition for both the operations and accounting teams.
QUICK RATE
Evaluate equipment options and their impact on price in real-time. This eliminates guesswork from every quote.
INTEGRATED SEARCH
Find any shipment or document (up to 7 years old) instantly. No more digging through filing cabinets or email chains.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Custom dashboards for data-driven decision-making, turning raw freight data into actionable cost intelligence.
What’s Inside the Complete Case Study?
The full PDF goes deeper than the highlights above. Download it to see the specific workflow changes that allowed Misco Products to scale while cutting staffing costs. A useful read for any chemical manufacturer whose freight management has become a bottleneck to growth.
A detailed breakdown of the phased TMS implementation process, from kickoff to full adoption.
How Misco Products uses TLI as an extension of their customer service team.
Specific examples of how ViewPoint eliminated assumptions in carrier selection to drive direct freight savings.
Details on the electronic upload of PODs and BOLs that fully automated the accounting workflow.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Chemical manufacturer freight management covers the full logistics operation for chemical producers, including carrier selection, shipment tracking, freight billing, compliance documentation, and cost reporting. For high-volume manufacturers like Misco Products, it also includes managing year-over-year carrier negotiations and ensuring accurate freight billing across thousands of annual shipments.
A 3PL reduces freight costs by replacing manual carrier selection with real-time rate comparison, auditing invoices for billing errors, and using data to negotiate better contracts. TLI’s ViewPoint TMS gave Misco Products the visibility to make carrier decisions based on performance data rather than habit, which contributed to 5-10% company growth over three consecutive years.
ViewPoint TMS is TLI’s proprietary transportation management system. For chemical manufacturers, it provides real-time rate quoting across equipment types, instant document retrieval going back 7 years, and custom reporting dashboards. Misco Products used it to manage over 7,000 shipments without adding customer service headcount.
Implementation timelines vary by operation, but TLI uses a phased approach that prioritizes on-floor training for operations and accounting teams before going fully live. For Misco Products, freight bill retrieval time dropped by 6 weeks within the first operational period.
A 3PL does not replace your team. It works alongside it. Misco Products reduced customer service personnel costs by 50% not by cutting staff, but by eliminating the need to hire additional headcount as the company grew. TLI also handles after-hours logistics support, freeing Misco’s internal team to focus on higher-value work instead of manual shipment tracking.