UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS

The Challenge:

DECENTRALIZED AD HOC SHIPPING ACROSS DEPARTMENTS AND LOCATIONS LEADING TO HIGH SHIPPING COSTS AND LACK OF VISIBILITY

UC Davis is essentially a small city with all the services and operations that would be expected, and operates as a decentralized environment. Shipments can originate from the desktops of approximately 350 departments on the main Davis campus, 350 departments on the Medical Center campus, and across the university’s satellite locations in each county in California. Items shipped using expedited services include hazardous materials, such as biologicals, dry ice and chemicals; equipment; paper and books; and office supplies.

Inbound shipments presented a second challenge. UC Davis engages in a significant amount of collaborative research. As a result, the university was financially responsible for shipments coming into UC Davis from locations around the US and the world.

University researchers, staff and students are not professional shippers. This created a further challenge as it resulted in parcels being dispatched with incorrect and/or incomplete shipping procedures, such as:

• Address format problems, resulting in additional address update surcharges
• Shippers using service levels that exceeded their needs, resulting in additional costs
• Lack of compliance with shipping regulations for hazmat goods and international shipments, resulting in regulatory exposure
• Items not properly packaged, which could result in damaged or destroyed goods
• Package weight and dimensions reported to carriers incorrectly, leading to additional costs

Furthermore, decentralized and ad hoc shipping procedures meant that, on any given day, multiple carrier vehicles could be delivering goods and picking up shipments on campus with little to no administrative oversight.

UC Davis also lacked visibility into what shipments were leaving the campus. This increases liability in regards to violations of the regulations, particularly hazmat and export regulations.

There was no recognized resource to assist university staff with shipping on the campus.

UC Davis, therefore, saw a requirement to align campus needs with shipping resources. UC Davis wanted a solution provider that could help  control costs, improve visibility, ensure compliance when shipping hazardous materials, meet export controls and reduce the administrative burden of paying carrier invoices. 

The Solution:

AGGIESHIP — THE NEXT GENERATION OF OUTBOUND SHIPPING FOR UC DAVIS

UC Davis chose QAD GTTE to create AggieShip, an outbound shipping system that is available for university staff across all locations.

AggieShip leverages QAD Transportation Execution, Desktop Shipping and Freight Bill Audit & Pay. UC Davis decided on a cloud deployment of the solutions because of the decentralized university environment.

There were a number of reasons why UC Davis decided to partner with QAD. The university required a system that would recommend proper service level based on desired customer arrival date. With QAD Transportation Execution, users can compare carrier rates, routes and service levels to choose the lowest cost service that meets the required delivery time.

UC Davis also wanted to control costs by reducing the number of carrier invoices that needed to be manually processed and paid. University departments were shipping under individual account numbers, resulting in individual invoices being sent for payment. This process was not cost-effective as there were significant administrative procedures required before an invoice could be paid.

By leveraging QAD Freight Bill Audit and Pay, AggieShip can produce all shipments under a single carrier account number. Users enter their internal UC Davis department recharge number so that carrier charges are allocated to their specific department.

“The FBAP module was a requirement for us which pushed QAD to the top of the shipping system vendors. In our environment we need the ability to centralize shipping and pass the charges on to the departments/ programs using the service,” explains Jen Carmichael, General Manager, SCM Distribution & Logistics at UC Davis.

AggieShip provides visibility and reporting. This allows UC Davis to work with specific departments on campus based on their particular shipments in addition to analyzing how shipping is used in conjunction with the university’s business needs. An added benefit is that UC Davis can now provide this data to regulatory agencies regarding shipping activities.

AggieShip also allows UC Davis to address challenges around export and other compliance issues. Before the introduction of the system, researchers could ship samples, equipment, and other items with no administrative oversight using their own departmental shipping numbers.

UC Davis wanted a system that gave visibility to the university, but equally provided the ability to ship compliant packages. Using QAD Desktop Shipping, AggieShip takes users through a series of compliance steps, including restricted party screening, supporting the university to meet export compliance regulations.

The Benefits:

COST SAVINGS, IMPROVED VISIBILITY AND COMPLIANCE CONTROLS

Results with QAD GTTE include:

• Cost savings: savings for departments, as well as for the university as a whole
• Reduced administrative burden: fewer manual invoices to process
• Regulatory compliance: ensures uc davis shipments meet state and federal regulations as well as ever-changing export controls.
• Visibility and oversight: new tools and reports for fiscal officers and others to manage shipment activity for their department
• Improved user experience: easy-to-use data entry screens, including options to save frequently-used delivery locations

By centralizing outbound shipping under one system instead of hundreds of department carrier accounts, UC Davis was able to utilize systemwide agreements with carriers that offered beneficial terms and conditions as well as lower costs.

AggieShip provided further cost savings through mode optimization and account consolidation. AggieShip eliminates the need for departments to create individual shipping accounts with the carriers. This reduces the administrative burden of processing hundreds of carrier invoices.

AggieShip serves as a single location for all outbound shipping activity. This significantly reduces the need for having to use shadow/backup systems, locate paperwork, and complete other administrative tasks.

The reporting functionality available in AggieShip helps university managers and fiscal officers to easily track and manage outbound shipments.

Restricted party screening is integrated into the process of producing a shipping label. The system validates each non-US delivery location and/or person to ensure there are no current restrictions to that location or person. Should a restriction apply, AggieShip routes the shipment to the AggieShip Admin team for review and consultation.

Furthermore, AggieShip has built-in system field validations to ensure that all the required information has been entered when shipping select hazardous goods.

AggieShip also simplifies ongoing compliance and makes it easy for UC Davis to make any necessary changes to accommodate ever-changing shipping and export regulations.

*QAD Global Trade and Transportation Execution (GTTE) was formerly known as Precision Software