Southland Steel Fabricators sees substantial savings in time and money after digitizing its logistics operations.

Challenge

Southland Steel Fabricators is a family-owned business built on the philosophy of hard work and ethical business practices. Over the last three decades, this has earned the company a reputation for timely project completion under the highest of quality standards. With a focus on superior customer service, they serve numerous prominent clients in industries ranging from oil and gas, chemical, refining, and power generation, to space exploration rocket structures and more. 

The company, which aims to be a one-stop shop for the steel industry by providing services like steel fabrication and galvanization, 3D modeling, and complete project management, deploys as many as 10 trucks to carry out their operations.

Southland Steel has invested heavily in its facilities and procedures to provide an unrivaled, personalized experience for its customers. But until recently, the company relied on manual logs and reports to carry out its operations and brokered out its logistics. Important information would inevitably fall through the cracks or get misplaced, leading to disorganized processes and unnecessary logistics costs. 

Gary Overturf, Southland Steel’s logistics manager responsible for sourcing return hauls and the flow of vehicles between two of the company’s plants, felt the pain of manual dispatch. So when Southland Steel landed a large contract for a job in Corpus Cristi, TX, Overturf insisted the company invest in a dispatch tool that could track their vehicles and assets across the 525 miles between the new job site and the company’s fabrication and galvanization plant in Greensburg, LA.

Solution

“Motive helps me keep up with our drivers and everything that moves in and out of this plant,” Overturf said. “All the information is funneled into the right category: dispatchers, planned dispatches, dispatches in progress, and completed dispatches. And all this information is in the same place I’m tracking mileage and fuel receipts.”

This level of visibility into the company’s fleet operations helps Overturf create detailed reports and invoices, which has significantly improved the profitability of Overturf’s branch. Within just the first month of using Motive, Overturf estimated the company saved at least $25,000 in previously overlooked or lost charges. 

“And that was a slow month,” he said. “As loads increase, we’re going to be saving even more.”

Results

By digitizing its dispatch through Motive, the logistics team at Southland Steel can plan, assign, monitor, and review all their logistics in the Motive Fleet dashboard. 

“On a monthly basis, we’ve eliminated a week’s worth of time spent running around trying to find the right information about our trucks,” Overturf said. He estimates the Southland Steel logistics team has seen a 20% improvement in productivity because the level of visibility Motive provides the logistics and operations teams has eliminated the need for as many in-person meetings and office visits.

Overturf also said that Motive has improved relationships with the company’s drivers. Where once drivers had to chase down information about their load and deliveries or juggle multiple emails, text messages, and back-and-forth phone calls, drivers can now simply check their Motive app for all their job needs. 

“We’re about to double our amount of drivers, and it’s going to be a dream dispatching these trucks with Motive,” Overturf said. “Motive frees up so much of my time for higher-value work. I don’t need to worry anymore about my drivers not knowing what to do.