Event Notes: How a $2B Brand Fixed Their 3PL Relationship

On September 11th, I hosted a live case study session with Zack and Aaron from the TAC Group.

They joined me to walk through how they rescued a $2B consumer brand’s 2M-sq-ft distribution center after its launch with a Tier-1 3PL nearly collapsed.

The brand had invested heavily in a new building and a Tier-1 WMS, but the rollout went sideways. Costs spiked, fill rates dropped to 75%, orders were missed, and trust between the brand and its 3PL broke down. Leadership was stuck in daily fire drills, while customers faced delays.

That’s the point when TAC was brought in to stabilize operations.

Here are my notes from the session 👇

What went wrong (the assessment)

People

• Leaders were tied up in constant closed-door meetings, leaving the floor with little direction.

• Operators lacked clear targets and accountability, creating confusion in a 2M-sq-ft facility.

• Tension between brand and 3PL teams meant collaboration was replaced by finger-pointing.

Process

• No single source of truth - brand and 3PL maintained separate spreadsheets and data sets.

• Inventory reconciliation was chaotic, with teams emailing cell files back and forth instead of aligning in real time.

• Carrier appointments and cut times were consistently missed due to lack of proactive staging.

Technology

• A new Tier-1 WMS was live but barely being used as intended.

• Workarounds like colored cones on pallets became the de facto system of record.

• Reporting was lagging and incomplete - basic on-time delivery reports were late, unreliable, and weekly at best.

How TAC rebuilt it

1. Creating visibility (without WMS access)

• No direct login to the WMS, so they pulled open-order reports every 2 hours and built daily “what happened yesterday?” dashboards

• Pivoted to order readiness reports so teams could validate loads hours/days ahead of cut times

• In high-velocity areas, 30 - 40 monitors went up to display real-time pallet readiness

2. Rebalancing floor vs. meetings

• Leaders pulled out of constant crisis calls → back on the floor with operators

• Clear daily targets set, reducing firefighting

• New meeting cadence: leaders ↔ leaders, operators ↔ operators, with one shared set of numbers

3. Restoring trust & collaboration

• Brand and 3PL moved from dueling spreadsheets to a single source of truth

• TAC earned credibility by pointing out issues and showing quick fixes

• By the end, the 3PL was solving problems before TAC flagged them

The results

• Fill/on-time shipments: improved from ~75% → 98%

• Throughput: scaled from ~8k → 40k cases/day, with a trajectory toward 60–80k

• Leadership drag: daily CEO involvement tapered down to weekly check-ins

• Relationship reset: finger-pointing gave way to collaboration and shared problem-solving

Lessons from this project

• Start on the floor. Observe before you model.

• Prove yesterday, protect tomorrow. Move from lagging to leading indicators.

• Earn influence. If you don’t manage the 3PL, show credibility through small wins.

• System over hacks. Stop workarounds; reinforce the WMS.

• One songbook. Enforce a single version of the truth.

• Cadence > chaos. Set fewer, better meetings with clear outputs.

If they had to do it again

• No big-bang go-live. Ramp up in phases.

• Over-invest in testing. End-to-end with real data and exceptions.

• Always have a contingency plan. For carriers, slotting, and WMS failure points.

• Plan conservatively. Easier to accelerate than slam the brakes.

• Bring in a third-party early. Stress-test assumptions before launch day.

Memorable lines

• “Measure to act, not to admire.”

• “Trust but verify became the operating mod - until the 3PL verified before we asked.”

• “A good KPI for us? How fast can we get the CEO out of the building.”

Resources

• 📹 Recording of our conversation: Webinar

• 🔍️ TAC’s website: https://thetacgrp.com/

See you at the next session,

Gowtham 👋