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BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc.’s mission is to provide quality and consistency to its customers. So, when execs of the 145-unit food and general merchandise chain decided to open a new distribution center in Jacksonville, Fla., they wanted to find a carrier they could count on to provide top-notch transportation service.

They believe they did by choosing Florida East Coast Railway (FECR), which competed with national trucking companies for the business.

“We recognized very early in the review phase that FECR’s competitive service and pricing package was something we needed to take a very close look at,” says Jim Cooney, BJ’s vice president of global transportation.

The 351-mile regional was awarded a contract to ship the club’s merchandise from the distribution center to seven Miami- and Ft. Lauderdale-area stores.
Although BJ’s has used rail before, it only has done so on an inbound basis, Cooney says.

Since the center opened in April, FECR has been trucking products from the distribution center to an intermodal ramp, hauling them by rail to Miami or Ft. Lauderdale, and delivering items to clubs in the middle of the night so store operations aren’t affected.

“It’s the service quality BJ’s expects, which is an overnight service,” says John Lucas, FECR’s intermodal vice president.


Extraordinary expectations
And BJ’s expectations remain at the forefront of FECR
officials’ minds. The railroad prides itself on attracting and retaining customers such as BJ’s, which are more service sensitive than most customers, Lucas says.

“They want no variability in service, and want equipment integrity and quantity,” he says. “They also expect a very formal communications process and favorable economics. BJ’s is at the top of the food chain in terms of expectations.”

To meet those expectations, the regional retrofit 55 53-foot trailers to carry the club’s merchandise. The trailers were spot welded to protect against theft.

FECR also promises merchandise will arrive at the clubs on time. (“You can set your watch by it,” says David MacInnes, FECR’s assistant vice president of intermodal marketing and sales.) The railroad’s been successful, boasting 98 percent on-time performance.

FECR execs communicate daily with BJ’s officials to provide shipments updates.
In addition to trading faxes and emails updating each of the 12 to 14 daily loads, officials from both companies hold a conference call every day at 4 p.m. The calls typically last only a few minutes, but enable key players to review loads that were delivered the day before and loads that soon will be delivered, says MacInnes.

It’s rare that a customer requests such detailed communication — especially for overnight shipments — but the process has helped both companies improve coordination.

“We don’t have to communicate all day long because we know everyone will be on the phone at 4 p.m.,” MacInnes says. “The equipment supply person reports on empties and loads, the dispatcher in Jacksonville knows how many loads have to be picked up for the day, and the Miami dispatcher knows what the railroad is delivering that evening.”


Details matter
BJ’s might require more attention than other FECR customers, but the railroad
isn’t complaining. FECR officials know the harder they work to specialize operations for a particular customer, the more difficult it is for another transportation provider to take the customer away.

“Our company is willing to modify our processes to meet any customer requests,” says Lucas. “Doing so increases communication, improves customer relationships, and builds commitment and loyalty between the railroad and customer. We’ve made a pretty substantial commitment for BJ’s, and in turn they have committed to us 100 percent of their business to these locations.”

FECR is the first of BJ’s transportation partners to ship merchandise from origin to destination, which also makes the railroad BJ’s first carrier to deliver merchandise directly to clubs.

“FECR is a first-class railroad operated by a group of professionals who are operationally sound and highly customer- service focused,” says Cooney. “This has added a whole new transportation dimension to our corporate logistics vision. We look forward to a long-term partnership between our two companies.”