Totem Ocean Trailer Express, Inc.

Using ShipServ TradeNet and ShipServ Pages to

free up time to spend on sourcing new suppliers
and improving existing supplier relationships

Case Study: Totem Ocean Trailer Express, Inc.

TradeNet Benefits
• 20% more time allocated to challenging sourcing projects
• 10% more time allocated to value-added sourcing and negotiation activities
• Reduced sourcing time from weeks to days for hard-to-find parts
• Contribution to cost control via operational efficiencies
• Improved process visibility & vendor performance data
The Company Requisitions are sent from each vessel
to the Port Engineer for approval via their
Totem Ocean Trailer Express, Inc. (TOTE) is Totem Ocean Trailer Express - a snapshot
SpecTec AMOS purchasing system. From
a privately-owned freight and cargo shipping here, requisitions are sent on to Gee. It is • Locations: Tacoma, WA and Port of Anchor-
company. The company has four vessels: at this point that the process gets more age, AK, USA
two are charter vessels, while the other two complicated and work-intensive. In line • Fleet type/size: Four roll-on/roll-off cargo
are used to operate a twice-weekly service with TOTE’s purchasing policies, Gee is re- ships
between the Port of Tacoma, Washington quired to get two or more quotes for each • No. Of Employees: 150
and the Port of Anchorage, Alaska. order – that’s a lot of communication and • Departmental responsibilities: Purchase
a lot of paperwork. Similarly time consum- of all ship supplies
TOTE’s purchasing department is headed by ing is finding alternative suppliers in order • ShipServ customer since: 2007
Phil Morrell, Vice President Marine Opera- to satisfy the two-quote policy, particularly
tions and is run by Lisa Gee, Purchasing for ‘hard to find’ parts for older machinery,
Administrator, who is responsible for the or local suppliers in remote locations when
procurement of everything needed to run the charter vessels are abroad.
the vessels, from fuel to nuts, bolts and
spare parts, paint, food, bedding, cleaning Communicating with suppliers was typical-
materials and everything else in between. ly done by fax and email. Re-keying quotes
manually into AMOS took up a lot of time
Today TOTE uses ShipServ TradeNet, the and was fraught with potential errors. “The
maritime e-commerce trading platform, to biggest challenge we had was clarity of
request and receive quotes and send out or- writing – does the faxed quote say 3 or 8,
ders. The company is also a regular user of 5 or 2? I usually had to call up to clarify –
ShipServ Pages, the online supplier directory a real waste of my time,” says Gee.
for the shipping industry.
For TOTE, saving time is a critical part of
The Challenge cost control. Indeed speed is increasingly
of the essence in the shipping industry
Like many other shipping companies, TOTE today. “Prices are fluctuating a lot more
runs a simple ship-to-shore purchasing these days,” explains Gee. “Quotes used
process. The individual ship managers are to be valid for 60 days or more; today
responsible for their ships and budgets, they’re good for 14-30 days so it’s critical
“Before Pages it used to take
using a purchasing catalogue to make their that we find suppliers and get quotes back several weeks just to find the right
orders. On shore, it is Lisa Gee’s responsibil- quickly so we can take advantage of good supplier. Now we can be placing
ity to fulfil orders and execute the purchas- prices.” orders in a matter of days.”
ing plan to ensure that spend is kept within
budget. “Our goal is always to come in Lisa Gee, Purchasing Administrator,
under budget so that we can cover things in Totem Ocean Trailer Express, Inc.
an emergency,” says Gee.
Case Study: Totem Ocean Trailer Express, Inc.

The ShipServ difference

Fast, measurable returns

The Solution An additional 10% of Gee’s time is also Beyond this TOTE is also considering extend-
spent increasing her supplier network and ing the use of TradeNet for managing its
The company needed a solution that would purchasing knowledge by speaking with shore-based facilities purchasing needs as
help it tackle this volume of work and suppliers by telephone or taking the time well as purchasing for other vessels owned
free up resources to improve cost control to meet with them. The data automatically by TOTE’s parent company.
and supplier performance. TOTE was first collected by TradeNet creates an additional
introduced to ShipServ by Morrell, who had layer of valuable business intelligence that
previous experience of ShipServ at another Gee uses to help improve supplier manage-
shipping company. In February 2007 TOTE ment processes.
began using TradeNet and hasn’t looked For example,
back since. TOTE uses the Supplier relationships improved
Key Performance through better quality data
The Benefits Indicator (KPI)
data in TradeNet when carrying out sup-
Today TOTE uses ShipServ TradeNet to plier evaluations. For Gee the KPIs provide About ShipServ
send out Request For Quotes (RFQs) and valuable evidence of how well suppliers have
orders. And with the requirement to get two been performing. “Occasionally a long- ShipServ is the leading maritime e-market-
or more quotes for every order that soon standing supplier will come to me and ask place, helping the buyers and sellers of ship
turns into a lot of administration to manage. why we aren’t doing so much business with supplies to reduce the costs associated with
TradeNet is integrated with TOTE’s AMOS them anymore. Now I have solid data that doing business together. In 2008 ShipServ
purchasing system so everything is handled tells me that either they weren’t responding helped its members save an estimated
electronically with no need to send faxes or quickly enough to RFQs or that their pric- $100m and transformed the way they do
emails and manually re-key data into AMOS. ing’s too high.” business.
“Sometimes the orders are over 20 pages
long,” says Gee. “Not having to manually “As a result of taking the time to do this Whether a Buyer needs to streamline its
key the orders we’ve been able to purchasing operations or a Supplier wants
into our purchas- 20% more time allocated to leverage our spend by to reduce the cost of attracting or retaining
ing system is a negotiating better prices. customers, ShipServ is unique in helping
real time saver.” challenging sourcing projects Now some of our suppli- businesses of all sizes to find each other
ers realize that they’ve easily, connect cost effectively and trade
As a result of got competition we’ve efficiently.
using TradeNet Gee is able to allocate 20% been able to renegotiate more favourable
more of her time looking for single ‘hard-to- contracts and framework agreements.” As of May 2009, the ShipServ community
find’ items such as parts for older machin- numbers over 130 buying organisations,
ery. For this Gee uses ShipServ Pages to Looking forward, although TOTE doesn’t 4,500 vessels and 27,000 suppliers. For
find suppliers at least once a week. “Before insist that its suppliers use ShipServ, the more information visit www.shipserv.com
we had access to Pages it used to take company is encouraging suppliers to look to
numerous phone calls around my network of TradeNet for orders. For Gee, the benefits
suppliers. What used to take several weeks are clear: “With TradeNet, all it takes is just
now takes less than a week with Pages. If one extra click of the mouse and it saves
I need to find an item really quickly I use me looking through reams of paper. Using
Pages to identify the suppliers and then call TradeNet for even a third of our orders saves
them direct.” us a lot of time. It’s less boring too!”

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