AWI/White Rose was another distribution client of mine.
I toured three of their facilities located within 20 miles of NYC: a 100,000-square-foot refrigerated warehouse for dairy products, a 240,000- square foot freezer warehouse, and a 645,000-square-foot dry grocery warehouse. Frozen foods alone shipped over 1,300 pallets daily. Every weekday on company-owned 53ft trailers, the union drivers delivered to more than 1000 independent grocery stores and bodegas in the five boroughs. AWI made another large number of deliveries to their co-op grocery customers from its 200,000 and 800,000 square foot facilities in eastern PA.
Tight margins in the food business weighed upon the dispatchers, ops managers and staff every day. The CEO, CFOs, controllers and others interested in the bottom-line set up scoreboards and dashboards to watch the five Fs:
Freight volumes
Freight rates
Fleet capacity
Fuel price
Financing costs
Enterprises do not manage themselves. Your C-suite can leverage its current management discipline by using the invisible role of insurance to drive profound changes. The VP Financial Management was my client contact at AWI/White Rose. He spear-headed a behavioral-based workplace safety incentive program that reduced worker’s compensation costs by 20%, saving $1 million/year. Keen insight into the interaction of different department processes and procedures at the distribution centers unleashed successful changes.
And, that’s the fascinating point: under the banner/guide/auspices/bludgeon of ‘insurance’ you can enhance control of operations. Insurance, risk management, loss prevention, loss control, safety have one thing in common, no matter the name the employees know it by: ‘insurance’ can be used as a benchmark to make each work process safer. Insurance industry resources should be leveraged to drive greater efficiency and productivity. As safety increases, input costs go down. So as a process is done differently or outsourced the company becomes safer and more profitable.
AWI saved $1 million on workers compensation annually. That was only the beginning of the bottom line results. Job satisfaction rose, as evidenced by reduced union grievances. This led to shop rules changing to be more allow more efficiency with the trucks, saving fuel and labor in the shop.
Insurance proved to be a driving force.
