CASE STUDY: SAVING A BUCKET OF MONEY FOR LEAKTITE

The city of Leominster, Massachusetts is widely acknowledged as the home of the modern plastics industry. It is appropriate that the city is also the home of the Leaktite Corporation, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of plastic containers. From its Leominster factory, Leaktite ships millions of plastic, metal and paper pails, buckets and liners to customer across North America.

“We moved here twenty years ago from Watertown, Massachusetts,” says Rod Sparrow, Leaktite’s president. “Since then we’ve expanded our building five times and grown the business four times over.”

More than 10 years ago, Sparrow began investigating the possibility of using an outside company to manage the company’s freight. He was looking for someone to take over burden of freight negotiations, which Rod had been handling himself.

“PMC came in and Tom Dromey did an evaluation of our freight,” says Sparrow. “I thought we had our classifications right and had trimmed all that we could off our freight rates. But Tom told me he could save me 15 or 20 percent. He was right PMC began saving us money right away.”

That was more than a decade ago, and PMC Logistics continues to provide third party logistics service to Leaktite. PMC negotiates rates and coordinates shipments of Leaktite’s pails, buckets and liners to distributors, paint stores, hardware stores and other retailers (including Home Depot) in almost every state, as well as Mexico and Canada.

“The real advantage PMC gives us is having the carriers buy into their tariff,” says Rod Sparrow. “This is a distinct advantage, as the carriers can do business with many customers through one resource. We really benefit from PMC’s clout.” Rod also appreciates PMC’s audit of his freight bills prior to payment. “We get an immediate return back on any mistakes.”

As Leaktite’s business grew over the years, PMC began negotiating full truckload shipments for the company. “Having PMC obtain truckload bids through their computer program is a tremendous help,” notes Rod. “The truckload bid program guarantees us the lowest price per load.”

“As president of the company, I have many hats to wear,” says Rod Sparrow. “It is nice to know that overseeing all of our freight has been taken off my shoulders and is in the capable hands of PMC.”