AutoZone

Autozone. G.M. Schwab, IJmschau 1922, 538-9 CA 17, 468(1923) coined this word for an isomer of ozone, which does not seem to exist. The word "autozone could not be found in Mellor s, Kirk Othmer s,IJlmann s, Hackh s, CondChemDictionary nor CA s indices except the one referring to 17, p 468... 

AutoZone at the turn of the century had annual sales of about 4 billion. It sold its products through 2750 AutoZone stores and 43 TruckPro stores in 14 states. Its growth in recent years has been at a 27% rate, putting AutoZone in the Fortune 500. At the time of its commitment to its partnership with J.B. Hunt in 1995, AutoZone had 1143 stores, with a plan to add a store a day to its network. 

As a retailer, AutoZone s success relied heavily on the effectiveness of its supply chain. In 1995, AutoZone was finding that its growth was being held back by operational issues that led to management distraction and added cost. Among the issues cited were the problems of processing inbound product from a variety of suppliers around the country. 

Each of AutoZone s seven distribution centers at the time received shipments from each supplier. The result was that many incoming shipments. 

AutoZone also had limited resources for information technology. Other areas of fhe company were considered a priority over the requirements of inbound fransporfahon. The components of its supply chain were seen to be "unintegrated." These included merchandising, where decisions are made regarding product lines distribution centers transportation and accoimting and finance. 

AutoZone sought to head off problems that were bound to increase along with company growth. The principal goals of the partnership included the... 

Optimization variables for AutoZone included site locations for distribution centers, flows between distribution centers, suppliers, and AutoZone stores, inventory and cycle times, transportation modes, and trade-offs between service and cost. The central feature of the improved AutoZone transportation network was the shift away from a system where suppliers shipped product to each distribution center. This was replaced by supplier shipments only to the nearest center. That center, in turn, would replenish the other centers with products from that supplier. This enabled AutoZone to enjoy the benefits of truckload rather than LTL quantities. AutoZone trucks and selected carriers could now make the distribution center to distribution... 

AutoZone was motivated to partner for this transition by the expertise in transportation as well as the information technology already developed and maintained by J.B. Hunt Logistics. Roles for J.B. Hunt Logistics included the following ... 

A single point of contact for transportation inquiries. Inquiries could arise from AutoZone distribution centers, administrative functions, stores, and suppliers. 

Audit freight bills, pay carriers, and bill AutoZone. 

After operating the newly designed transportation network for 4 years, AutoZone and J. B. Hunt Logistics have evaluated the results. The following paragraphs compare the "before" and "after" conditions with respect to the initial objectives. 

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