Identify and select a provider to perform rail rate negotiation, implement contracts, and perform freight payment for all rail transportation lanes totaling 6,000 carloads per year within a period of 60-days.

Safety-Kleen obtained full visibility and control of their rail transportation rates and met the deadlines imposed by the targeted startup…overall rates and charges were well below their previous rail rate levels when utilizing adjusted rail carrier rate increases over the same period.

Safety-Kleen Systems ( Plano , TX ) is the leading parts washer, industrial waste management, and oil recycling and re-refining company in North America . Dedicated to customer service and environment stewardship, Safety-Kleen possesses branches across the U.S. and Canada to provide their clients with the highest quality, and most responsive service available.

Safety-Kleen depends on several modes of transportation to safely and reliably transport both hazardous and non-hazardous wastes. Rail transportation is a very critical mode in their ability to source, storage, and process as many as 18 unique commodities. Safety-Kleen maintains a fleet of 1,000+ tank cars to transport both waste materials as well as a fleet dedicated to re-refined lubricating oils.

Following the popular shift to outsource transportation and logistics, Safety-Kleen contracted with a third-party to manage most aspects of their transportation…this included their rail activities. After several years of this arrangement, Safety-Kleen made the determination to pull various aspects of their transportation back in-house. The most challenging aspect of this change was that it needed to be accomplished within a period of 60-days. To assist in these efforts, Safety-Kleen contracted with RSI Logistics to manage their rail rate negotiations, rate management, and rail freight payment.

RSI went right to work with Safety-Kleen to identify all rail shipping lanes based the criteria of commodity, routing, serving carrier(s), volume, car capacity, and other special requirements. To assist in the negotiation efforts, RSI performed a theoretical costing analysis and made comparison against the Surface Transportation Board's (STB) freight bill sample to benchmark rate levels relative to rail carrier costs. RSI classified and group the individual lanes by possible routings and determined if the lanes were competitive between carriers and/or between modes. RSI began negotiating with the carriers, ironed out the contract details and worked to make the rate effective to coincide with Safety-Kleen's target date.

The resulting efforts allowed Safety-Kleen to restore their rail rates to competitive rate levels during a period where most rail carriers were seeking aggressive rate increases.

Through an ongoing relationship with RSI, Safety-Kleen will be assured that their rates remain competitive and will continue to seek improvements in both cost and service.

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