The news earlier this year that WalMart was moving to take far greater control of inbound freight from vendors (see Understanding WalMart’s Inbound Freight Strategy) has caused much discussion around the topic, and we believe accelerated interest in many companies to take a look at this strategy for themselves.

But how to do this effectively?

We covered this topic in a Videocast last week on "Taking Control of Inbound Freight Successfully," featuring long-time transportation epxert Stephen Craig of enVista.  Craig outlined what he saw as the three stages of inbound transportation management, as shown in our graphic of the week below. (To see an on-demand version of this excellent broadcast, go here: Inbound Freight Videocast on Demand.

Source: Stephen Craig, enVista

Many companies still rely on "delivered freight" controlled by vendors. Over the last two decades, many companies have issued routing guides to vendors, but the level of compliance with those guides is often less than stellar.

Clearly a number of companies, primarily in the retail sector but increasingly in manufacturing companies as well, are moving to dynamic inbound, where vendor shipments are assigned a carrier and routed based on the specifics of the shipment and opportunities to optimize total inbound flows with other shipments.

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