Case Study
Eaton simplifies U.S. - Mexico cross-border shipping and powers organizational efficiency with Uber Freight
Solution
Opportunity
Customer
Eaton is dedicated to improving people’s lives and the environment with power management technologies that are reliable, efficient, safe, and sustainable.
Customer Profile
Eaton regularly ships its products between Mexico and the U.S. But doing so efficiently and affordably was a challenge. First, strict compliance regulations and customs laws meant more obstacles to achieving a streamlined transportation process. Second, the company’s logistics operations were decentralized. Not only did each of its eight plants operate separately and use different processes for customs and border crossings, but the organization’s cross-border, intra-Mexico transportation and customs services teams also operated separately. As a result, Eaton employees were unable to have full visibility of operations and processes through customs, which decreased productivity across the board and caused delays.
Opportunity: Consolidate data, processes and operations
Uber Freight also enhanced Eaton’s reporting capabilities to deliver powerful insights for KPIs and dashboards to enable continuous improvement over the long term.
Partnering with Uber Freight made the “One Eaton” vision a reality by bringing together the company’s cross-border and customs operations under one roof to create a standard set of processes. The organization launched efforts such as invoice consolidation and cost allocation programs that assigned costs to specific warehouses.
By relying on Uber Freight’s vast network and infrastructure, Eaton was also able to eliminate the complexities associated with the customs process and stay in compliance with Mexican and U.S. regulations. Moving from different customs brokers to one single compliance team for Eaton’s eight plants meant that achieving compliance with Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) codes was no longer a significant challenge. Moving those operations to a single compliance team for the entire organization, our team helped Eaton streamline the compliance process through a single technology platform.
Results: Optimized cross-border transportation with full operational transparency
Talk to an expert today to find out how your business can benefit from one of the largest managed transportation and logistics networks with Uber Freight.
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In 2018, Eaton began looking to consolidate its entire supply chain operation as part of its “One Eaton” philosophy: a vision for integrating its solutions to solve global energy challenges more reliably, efficiently and sustainably. The key to fulfilling this philosophy was identifying a partner that shared Eaton’s culture and values. Since Eaton already worked with Uber Freight for its U.S. shipping operations, the organization sought to expand the partnership and tap into our global managed services to bring together its cross-border, intra-Mexico transportation and customs operations through Uber Freight's commercial partnership with Uber Freight Mexico Customs powered by TP Laser under one roof. Our team’s focus on technology, processes, people and profitability was a perfect fit for the organization’s “One Eaton” vision.
As the partnership expanded, Uber Freight sent a dedicated onboarding team to visit Eaton’s Mexico plants to best understand the challenges and opportunities across the disparate network. From there, Uber Freight’s Transport Management System (TMS)—a dynamic transportation management system—provided the functionality, analytics and performance needed for planning and execution, including full service of Laredo custom brokerage services for an efficient customs process.
With these tools in place, Eaton’s Strategic Supply Chain team and Uber Freight worked closely to consolidate each plant’s different methodologies for finance, IT and standard operating procedures. Instead of switching between eight individual customs brokers, Uber Freight’s TMS integrated all operations, KPIs, management, and communications in one place to promptly identify and execute opportunities for improvement.
Uber Freight also enhanced Eaton’s reporting capabilities to deliver powerful insights for KPIs and dashboards to enable continuous improvement over the long term. With our TMS and Customs Brokerage Services, Eaton improved its warehouse processes. Its team successfully applied Six Sigma engineering and quality principles throughout each step of the logistics process to increase productivity.
Solution: Use TMS and customs brokerage to increase visibility and efficiency
Results
Industry
Power Management
Headquarters
HQ in Dublin, Ireland, operations
across 175 countries
Size
85,000 Employees
Solution
Uber Freight’s Public Tracking Portal (PTP) empowers Eaton with end-to-end visibility, as well as a direct means for their internal customer service teams and external customers to track freight. The PTP track-and-trace solution is a web-based tool that provides real-time logistics network access and a summary of status updates on any active shipment moving through the Uber Freight Transportation Management System (TMS) within a 90-day range.
A unique Carrier Pro Number is created for all shipments by Eaton, connecting Eaton.com to the Uber Freight TMS for end-to-end visibility which expedites tracking from the origin to LTL shipments and all the way to the delivery’s final mile. For Eaton’s Service Team, PTP reduces a six-step communications process to track and verify shipments with customers.
Eaton’s customer experience is enhanced significantly because PTP is purpose-built with a user-friendly, self-service access to the portal. Customers can check shipments and get real-time visibility since the portal feeds directly from the TMS.