Case Study:
Midwest Equipment Sales
Overview
Midwest Equipment Sales (MWE) is the leading provider of rubber tracks, skid steer tires, undercarriage parts and other compact construction equipment parts and accessories for construction equipment manufacturers. With 6 shipping warehouses strategically located throughout the U.S. and Canada and a robust distribution network, it delivers high quality customer service for equipment replacement parts.
Benefits and Key Outcomes
Faster, smoother process due to a seamless NetSuite integration
Ability to easily create rules
Generate all documents needed in one place, quickly
Time savings for less than truckload (LTL) shipments
Batch processing for printing labels with one click
User-friendly, modern interface
“We had to go through a five step process just to get the rate quote for our customers. You’d have to go through several page loads and our sales team would have to stay on the phone with customers and apologize for the wait.”
Peter Westlake
VP of Technology
Challenge
A long-time NetSuite customer, MWE grew frustrated with its former shipping software, losing confidence in it following changes in ownership. Frequent, costly customizations were often required due to the software’s limitations. MWE was experiencing increasing challenges with the software and getting fewer services – for example, it wasn’t adding new carriers. The team at MWE wanted a NetSuite-compatible system that was more flexible and scalable and would off er long-term usability. Because the company ships a major portion of its large, expensive products by LTL, which can be inherently complex, MWE was looking for a better overall shipping solution.
With its old system, the MWE sales team had to go through a convoluted set of steps and clicks to get a shipping rate quote and create an estimate for customers, all while holding them on the phone. “We had to go through a five step process just to get the rate quote for our customers. You’d have to go through several page loads and our sales team would have to stay on the phone with customers and apologize for the wait,” said Peter Westlake, VP of Technology at MWE.
MWE also experienced issues and limitations with bulk shipping. The previous software could only batch process five labels at a time – which was very tedious when MWE ships hundreds of orders every day. “For some reason our last software could only process five orders at once,” said Westlake. “When you need to process 500 orders, that ends up wasting a lot of time.”
Solution
MWE considered multiple options and ultimately selected ShipHawk for its integration with NetSuite, its flexibility and the ability to customize documents that support the company’s unique business requirements. “We looked at several options and ShipHawk stood out as doing the best job for us,” said Westlake.
The sales team at MWE is saving time and improving customer sentiment due to the seamless integration with NetSuite. Today, the sales team fills out order details, clicks ‘get shipping rates,’ and see them immediately, delivering a faster and smoother process for its customers. Another benefit of the NetSuite integration and ShipHawk’s open APIs is the ability to customize information as it comes from NetSuite to work better for MWE’s business needs.
Using the LTL features from ShipHawk, the team at MWE has streamlined the process of getting the lowest priced carrier that meets end customer delivery expectations and generating documents in one place quickly, including shipping labels and BOLs. “We appreciate that now, we can just push ‘print,’ process a document, and get the labels, BOLs and packing slips in one step,” said Westlake.
The improved batch printing process has saved significant time for the warehouse team. “One thing ShipHawk does really well is batch processing,” said Westlake. “With ShipHawk, there’s the option to select all – you aren’t limited by five orders or ten orders. So when the team needs to move fast, there’s no constant starting and stopping to wait for labels, it’s all done at once.”
“One thing ShipHawk does really well is batch processing. With ShipHawk, there’s the option to select all - you aren’t limited by five orders or ten orders. So when the team needs to move fast, there’s no constant starting and stopping to wait for labels, it’s all done at once.”
Peter Westlake
VP of Technology
“The thing I like the most about ShipHawk is how it gets better every day. It has regular releases and the interface options improve every day. And that’s something we did not see with our last software.”
Peter Westlake
VP of Technology