Shelton, CT — April 15, 2003 — Land O'Lakes has tapped a logistics solution from provider G-Log to manage its inbound and outbound freight operations for the company's agricultural services business.
A national farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative with annual sales of $6 billion, Land O'Lakes does business in all 50 states and in more than 50 countries, marketing a line of dairy-based consumer, food service and food ingredient products. The company also provides farmers and local cooperatives with a line of agricultural supplies and services.
The company will launch G-Log's Global Command and Control Center (GC3) software with its Farmland Feed unit, the top U.S. feed manufacturer. G-Log said that by combining supply chain visibility and execution functionality in an integrated architecture, the GC3 software will allow Land O'Lakes to automate and manage all aspects of the logistics lifecycle as it ships livestock feeds to farmers and dealers across the country.
"With our rapidly growing business, we were looking for a technology that will essentially 'knit together' our transportation and logistics network to unify and simplify our business processes," said Dan McGowan, vice president of manufacturing and logistics for Land O'Lakes. "Deploying the G Log system enables us to automate what we currently do manually, implement more efficient business processes and provide better customer service across our supply chain."
"The G-Log solution will allow our logistics staff at any location to access a single data repository to support making real-time decisions," added Curt Young, director of business information systems for Land O'Lakes. "With up-to-date knowledge about the status of all shipments from purchase order through freight settlement, Land O'Lakes logistics personnel will be able to take appropriate action to reduce inventory and total freight spend."
The GC3 software enables Land O'Lakes to specify business rules for monitoring transportation milestones; if certain milestones are not met, the software automatically sends an alert to a system administrator. Through managing by exception, Land O'Lakes has the potential to save labor and IT resources while providing better customer service.
Land O'Lakes has selected Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) to assist in the key areas of business process design and project management. "Improving control over their daily logistics activities is critical for manufacturers facing the ever-increasing complexity of global supply chains driven by multi-mode shipments," said Alan Montgomery, vice president for CGE&Y's logistics consulting practice. "Shippers such as Land O'Lakes Feed need a technology that can efficiently orchestrate, consolidate and manage all their shipments anywhere in the world."