Snider Tire Optimizes Its Customers-Stores-Plants Transportation Network

We successfully redesigned the customer-store-plant production transportation network at Snider Tire, Inc. (STI), one of the largest commercial tire and retreading dealers in the United States, in two stages. We first optimized the plants-to-stores networks, and we then reengineered the customers-to-store truck routes. We used a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and optimization framework to improve key supply chain processes of plants’ capacity planning, and distribution routes optimization by focusing on the root causes of process problems and investigating process alternatives. This approach ensured that managers from this small, privately owned, traditional organization were part of the team that developed the solutions, enthusiastically implemented them, and co-owned them. As a result, STI is saving $2 million (16 percent) in annual transportation costs.