Nearly all high-tech companies today seek competitive advantage through far-reaching global supply chains, but they can only achieve this edge with tight, centralized control over their logistics. Maxim Integrated Products, a semiconductor manufacturer, understands this mandate perfectly. According to Maxim's director of logistics, Sam Berman, he selected Agistix to control shipping and distribution and to maintain consistency in vendor quality and pricing across the expanding supply chain of the $1.6bn multinational manufacturer of integrated circuits. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and has 8,000 employees across its facilities in the Western United States, the Philippines and Thailand.

In 2005, Maxim adopted Agistix's Heavy Freight and Small Package on-demand, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to accomplish several goals:

1. Centralize decision-making for how goods would be shipped and with whom

2. Enforce strict parameters on shipping methods and vendor selection

3. Reduce overall costs of shipping and distribution, and

4. Simplify management of huge volumes of weekly invoices from multiple vendors.

Maxim implemented the Agistix platform at its Sunnyvale headquarters to centralize decision-making control at a single point while giving users worldwide access to Agistix Heavy Freight and Small Package services via standard desktop browsers. Maxim also implemented the Agistix invoice consolidation service to centralize and automate its administrative and financial management of carrier accounts payable.

Berman says that from the very first day Maxim began using the Agistix solution, the semiconductor company was able to enforce shipping methods and vendor selection. Within the first quarter of use, thanks to increased pricing visibility for small parcel shipments and dynamic bidding that leveraged the spot quote market for heavy freight, Maxim reduced shipping costs by more than 28 percent.

"Instead of processing up to 500 shipping invoices each week, Maxim now receives a single electronic invoice," says Berman. "This change alone has cut accounts payable processing time from 70 hours per week to five minutes, generating savings of up to $5,000 a week."