Company Background

Mike Campbell & Associates has been providing outstanding customer service to the grocery industry for over 30 years. With a fleet of 700 drivers and 1200 trailers, the company provides dry and refrigerated freight service to the western states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico. Mike Campbell & Associates also manages over 3.5 million square feet of warehouse space and has over 2000 associates running this space.

Clients look to Mike Campbell & Associates for more than transportation and warehousing services however – many clients also tap the company for their logistics expertise. For example, the company frequently helps clients expand into new areas by analyzing routes and fuel costs and determining the strategic advantages of operating in one city over another.

The Challenge

In the grocery industry, timing is everything. Most products have a use by date, and every day a product sits within the four walls of a warehouse is one day less it has to sit on a store shelf. When it comes to architecting a rapid flow through distribution center (DC) from the ground up, Mike Campbell & Associates frequently relies on the expertise of LogFire, a global provider of supply chain software and services for retail and consumer goods companies.

According to Robert Camarena, president of Mike Campbell & Associates, “LogFire is a great resource for augmenting our company’s IT Department. Whether we’re implementing a new world class WMS for a client or moving a DC from one location to another, we rely on LogFire to completely own the project management role.” And in an industry like the 3PL industry – where a company’s success hinges on its ability to execute – this role is extremely critical.

A Sample Solution

Mike Campbell & Associates and LogFire have been working together for more then three years. The companies have completed various engagements together from bringing a brand new DC online to moving a 500,000 square foot DC to one city from another. The companies recently helped a specialty retail grocery chain replace its 20-year-old homegrown legacy WMS across four DCs. The new solution provides multi-site, multi-organizational, multi-principal, multi-system and multi-lingual capabilities for the management, control, execution and processing of logistics functions. According to Camarena, “At a time when more and more grocery chains are trying to simplify their operations and get out of the warehousing business, the solution we jointly implemented gives us the power to cost-effectively assume inventory replenishment activities for our customer with more accuracy and speed than ever before.”

Future Plans

The 3PL business is about serving customers. Camarena explains that most clients come to Mike Campbell & Associates with specific demands. They’ll tell the company that a warehouse has been located and it needs to be up and running by a certain date. Mike Campbell & Associates then has to make it happen.

According to Camarena, “We’re typically on a fast track to get a 500,000 or 600,000 square foot warehouse up and running within eight months. Success is based on how well this task is executed and if the implementation doesn’t go well, we are at risk of losing the contract.” Mike Campbell & Associates knows when they work with LogFire they are going to be working with qualified resources that hit the ground running and ensure a successful implementation. Camarena explains, “When LogFire assigns a resource to us, it’s guaranteed that this resource already knows warehousing. I’m not going to have to train LogFire resources on my nickel. I’m going to get every bang for my buck and I am going to have a successful project.” It’s this fact that keeps Mike Campbell & Associates turning back to LogFire as opportunities arise.