FLEET MANAGEMENT | DEDICATED TRANSPORTATION | SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS

Case Study

Saia LTL Freight and RyderFaster, Smarter, Better, Together.

Saia’s scope and situation

Today, Georgia-based Saia is a $1.3 billion

powerhouse with 147 terminals in 34 states

and more than 9,000 employees. It is one of

the nation’s top carriers, providing less-than-

truckload (LTL), non-asset truckload, and

logistics services to a broad range of industries,

including retail, chemical, and manufacturing.

Since going public in 2002, Saia’s stock price

(NASDAQ: SAIA) has risen more than eight-

fold, its revenue has increased by 49 percent,

and the number of employees has grown by

60 percent.

C H A L L E N G E S O L U T I O N R E S U LT S

Saia LTL Freight (Saia) wanted

to maintain and service its

fleet of 16,000 vehicles

consistently, reliably, and with

high-quality service, across

the 34 states in which the

company operates. Instead

of working with hundreds of

independent, local vendors,

different invoicing and billing

structures and unpredictable

charges – Saia wanted to

consolidate its vendor pool

and help improve a number

of key performance metrics.

Ryder On-Demand

Maintenance provides

customer’s access to Ryder’s

5,000+ expertly trained

technicians in 450+ locations

in the U.S. and Canada.

On-Demand Maintenance

lets Saia contract and pay

for maintenance at

pre-negotiated rates while

providing visibility to service

details across its entire

fleet network.

ReliabilityA crucial challenge was to improve Saia’s Compliance, Safety, and Accountability (CSA) score. Within the first year of working with Ryder, it improved from the 60’s to the 40’s for preventive maintenance on equipment, and now stands at 33 – putting Saia at the top 15th percentile within the industry

EfficiencyDramatically improved the invoice processing time by 43% with consistent, transparent data including VMRS (Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards) and SRT (Standard Repair Times) coding

PerformanceSaia has seen a 13% decrease in breakdowns and an improvement in on-time maintenance service performance to 97%

Making more than 26,000 freight deliveries a day throughout most of the United

States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico is a challenging business, even for

transportation pioneer Saia LTL Freight (Saia). Meeting challenges and exceeding

goals has been part of the company’s success story since its inception in 1924,

when Louis Saia, Sr. of Houma, La. removed the back seat of the family car and

the first Saia truck hit the road.

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Through nine decades of change and

innovation in transportation, Saia has

remained focused on what it takes to build

and sustain a world-class company that

provides superior customer service. To best

achieve it, the company has two key strategies:

1 A laser focus on safety, quality,

productivity, and employee relationships

2 Continual, significant investments in

training, new equipment, and

new technology

In 2015 alone, the company will invest $125

million in the aforementioned strategies and

leverage its purchase of logistics services

provider LinkEx, Inc., a diversified, asset-light,

3PL based in Dallas, Texas.

A new era, a new partner

As Saia has grown, the company’s leadership

team realized it needed a transportation

partner whose scale, expertise and footprint

could match Saia’s. Future productivity and

profitability required a national vendor to

maintain its fleet of 16,000 vehicles in the most

efficient way possible, wherever the vehicles

were operating, says Cris Burgum, Vice

President of Maintenance and Properties

at Saia.

“Improving performance is a huge focus for us

as we move freight from point A to point B as

quickly and efficiently as possible, making sure

we have as few claims as possible and providing

on-time, premier service,” he adds. “We needed

consistency from our vendor work, which was

done by many, small vendors. The large size of

the vendor pool was causing a loss of quality

and consistency in maintenance, fueling, and

equipment rental.”

Saia set about seeking a transportation services

partner and realized it needed one with the

following attributes:

1 An extensive network of shop locations

that mirrored Saia’s

2 Top quality maintenance operations

delivered by skilled technicians at

competitive costs for labor and parts

3 Consistent, reliable, and quality

service standards

“The maintenance and repair services we

receive need to be delivered by the best

technicians,” says Jason Plumlee, Director

of Maintenance at Saia. “We also needed to

reduce the risk of working with lots of small

vendors, whose work and products may not

be insured.”

The move to On-Demand Maintenance

In 2012, Saia hired Ryder to meet its

maintenance, fueling and equipment rental

needs –significantly reducing the number of

independent, local vendors it worked with

historically. Specifically, Ryder’s On-Demand

Maintenance program provides Saia with 450+

service locations throughout North America that

are staffed by more than 5,000 highly-skilled

technicians trained in multiple disciplines using

diagnostic and repair equipment.

Designed to provide the ultimate access to

maintenance professionals who understand

clients’ fleets, coordinate repairs, and do

preventive maintenance in sync with

government requirements, On-Demand

Maintenance is an innovative service that

eliminates the challenge of working with

multiple, local service vendors.

For Saia, Ryder’s On-Demand Maintenance

team performs about 1,000 repairs weekly, says

Steve Zeady, Director of National Accounts

for Ryder.

At the outset, a crucial challenge for Ryder

was to improve Saia’s CSA score - monitored

by the Department of Transportation’s

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

(FMCSA). Used as a benchmark by both Saia’s

current and potential customers to determine

the company’s safety, reliability, and quality

control, Saia’s existing CSA score was being

adversely impacted by the inconsistent quality

levels provided by its multiple vendors,

Burgum explains.

Within the first year, Saia’s CSA score

improved from the 60s to the 40s for preventive

maintenance on equipment – and is at 33

currently, putting it at the top 15th percentile

within the industry. “Ryder can be credited a

lot for that,” says Burgum.

“Getting the quality and condition of our fleet

right was critical to us and our customers,”

Plumlee says. “This improvement relates

directly to sales and productivity as we can

demonstrate equipment dependability, fewer

breakdowns, and reduced downtime.”

Saia records approximately 18,000 preventive

maintenance activities annually, and

historically, the on-time performance rate was

tracking between 70 and 80 percent. That level

has improved to 97 percent, and as a result,

breakdowns have decreased by 13 percent

leading to more uptime for Saia’s fleet.

With Ryder, Saia also has an easier time

scheduling maintenance by making a call to

Ryder’s Managed Maintenance Center (MMC),

where appointments are centrally scheduled

with any of the 450+ On-Demand Maintenance

shops in the network. This eliminates time lost,

days and even weeks, for services in the past.

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A customer schedules preventive maintenance and repair work whenever and wherever it’s needed. All it takes is a call to Ryder’s Managed Maintenance Center and a Ryder representative will discuss the scope of the job, obtain authorization, and immediately schedule the work. Charges for the work are billed at pre-negotiated contracted rates and invoices are sent weekly or monthly.

From left: Andy Herda, Regional Maintenance Manager (Saia),Cris Burgum, VP of Maintenance and Properties (Saia)

HOW DOES ON-DEMAND MAINTENANCE WORK?“ On-Demand Maintenance

has helped Saia improve the quality of our fleet, our CSA scores, and PM intervals, all of which means improved service to our customers.

– Jason Plumlee, Director of Maintenance, Saia

“

When breakdowns do occur, they are much

easier to remedy now that Saia works with

Ryder, both for repairs and equipment rental,

Plumlee adds. For example, if there’s a break

down in the middle of the night, “We make one

call and know that someone will always answer

to expedite service and get us back on the road

in as short a time as possible. This is a great

value-add.”

Better billing

As part of the move to an On-Demand

Maintenance contract with Ryder, Saia

challenged the account team to work with them

to create an automated, virtually paperless,

consolidated invoicing system for maintenance

parts and services.

The goal was to streamline the billing process

by gaining visibility into the costs of items

covered, along with control over the

maintenance spend. Together, Saia and Ryder

built an electronic, paperless system that allows

integration between the companies for

validation of invoices, work orders and their

status, as well as current costs. The companies

also have the ability to communicate to resolve

issues using the system.

“We receive the billing through the system

overnight, every night,” explains Andy Herda,

a Regional Maintenance Manager for Saia in

charge of maintenance operations at 11

terminals. “They come in already coded with

VMRS and SRT coding, which helps with our

data integrity internally. The service requests

are generated the same way, the repair work is

followed up in the same way, and the invoicing

is the same.”

Now, Saia has immediate electronic access to

real-time information about its maintenance

quality and volume, equipment rental, and fuel

usage – along with costs for all. The invoicing

process time has been reduced from 21 to

12 days.

“Ryder accepted the challenge immediately and

brought tremendous value to the process,”

Plumlee says. “It was a challenge for both of us,

but we worked as partners to get it right. Now

we have an invoicing system that is greatly

simplified and allows us optimum transparency

and understanding of costs. Our back office

expense is greatly reduced due to the new

system’s coding efficiency.”

The system also has an estimator tool that

flags future service needs and the associated

anticipated costs, well in advance of the

service being done. This allows Saia to predict

its future maintenance spend. Similarly, the

program helps Ryder closely mirror the metrics

that are most important to Saia and provides

data for preventive maintenance work orders

and approvals.

“We have the confidence of knowing the

system Ryder helped us create is accurate, and

is as seamless as possible,” says Burgum.

Trailblazers together

On-Demand Maintenance has proven to be

a value-added service to Saia. On reflection,

Plumlee concedes there was a concern about

whether Saia could depend on Ryder as its

every day service provider for many of its

non-maintenance locations, considering

how important downtime and equipment

availability are to its operations.

“Looking back, our concern was not an issue.

The Ryder team assessed demand levels at our

locations, increased manpower accordingly,

and adjusted staffing hours to meet our needs,”

he says.

Every month, Saia and Ryder meet to discuss

performance metrics and how to keep delivering

better results. “The relationship with Ryder has

really delivered for us – from the field level to

upper management,” Plumlee says.

“On-Demand Maintenance has helped Saia

improve the quality of our fleet, our CSA scores,

and PM intervals, all of which means improved

service to our customers.”

Discover how Ryder can help you with

On-Demand Maintenance. Call 1-800-793-3765

(option 1) or visit ryder.com.

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