The Perth DC lived on one east-west trunk and one weekly pattern. When a trailer missed Fremantle, stockouts were explained as the Nullarbor. Metro delivery, ad-hoc air and the scheduled trunk sat on one invoice line. Rates had been rolled. The operator knew the road. The distributor could not see the clock.
The difficulty
Industrial SKUs moved from east-coast suppliers into Western Australia on a single relationship. There was no split between the trunk that had to arrive on a named day and the metro work that started after the DC. Air was used as an apology, not as a designed overflow. When procurement asked whether the rate was competitive, the file that would have answered was a twelve-month mix of trunk, metro, waiting time and emergency lift. A national average rate would have priced the wrong work.
The incumbent's knowledge of Fremantle windows and wheatbelt running was real. It was also the reason nobody had written a demand pack a second operator could price honestly. A missed trailer was treated as geography. Geography does not decide whether you have a backup day of week.
What we changed
We rebuilt consignment history and arrival clocks for twelve months. Trunk was separated from metro. Overflow air was listed as its own lane with a trigger, not as a habit. The demand pack described Fremantle and Melbourne origin as different work. We recommended a panel, not a single winner, so peak and a missed sailing could move without a panic quote. The incumbent was invited. Two others priced the trunk. Metro was allowed to sit with a different operator if the scorecard said so.
Difficulty
One trunk, one pattern. Metro and air hidden in the same invoice. No backup day of week.
Measure
Arrival clocks, trunk versus metro split, panel scorecard, overflow trigger.
Result
Named days of week, a backup lane, a file the Perth DC could manage. The client signed.
The result
The Perth DC received a weekly trunk clock it could plan labour against. Overflow had a trigger instead of a Friday afternoon argument. Whether the incumbent kept the trunk is confidential. The method is the point: east-west work is not a national rate, and a panel is not disloyalty. It is how you stop a missed trailer from becoming a stockout story about the desert.
What the clocks showed
A share of the pain was not the Nullarbor. It was a Melbourne pickup window that regularly missed the sailing the Perth DC thought it had bought. A share was metro booked as trunk. A share was air used because nobody had a second road option that could leave mid-week. The demand pack therefore asked operators to price a named day, a backup day, and metro as a separate line. Questions from bidders came through one channel. Site knowledge was an advantage. Withholding a usable extract would have been a scorecard event.
We took no commission from any operator. The client kept the commercial decision and signed the contracts. Handover was a panel card, a clock, and an SLA draft that named arrival days rather than service adjectives.
What Perth could run on a Monday
Labour could be rostered to a trunk day. Emergency lift had a threshold. Metro failures were no longer blamed on the desert. Names, sites and dollar figures are withheld.