On-Site Distribution Center Manager (3PL Management)

Global Growth Industries; St. Louis (MO); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Global Growth Industries is seeking an On-Site Distribution Center Manager to serve as the primary liaison with the 3rd party DC, transportation operations, and Company stores. This role spends significant time on the DC floor, reviewing routes, loads, and performance data to prevent issues before they affect stores.

The Manager will own delivery performance metrics, conduct root-cause analysis, and drive corrective actions with clear owners and dates.

Qualifications

• 3-7+ years in distribution, transportation, logistics, or 3PL operations.
• 3+ years of leadership or operational management.
• Strong understanding of high-volume DC operations and transportation.
• Experience with 3PL providers or outsourced logistics operations.
• Strong analytical and financial skills with KPI interpretation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Willingness to work on-site with significant floor presence.
• Experience in convenience-store, grocery, foodservice, retail, or consumer-products distribution.
• Experience managing or overseeing dedicated contract carriage or private-fleet operations.
• Experience with driver recruiting/retention, route optimization, 3PL performance and contractual KPIs.

Responsibilities

• Monitor on-time delivery, order accuracy, product availability, transportation performance, cost control, inventory integrity, and store service.
• Review daily Company volume, route plans, staffing levels, driver coverage, equipment availability, and operational constraints.
• Identify potential service failures before they impact stores and develop immediate recovery plans with 3rd party leadership.
• Maintain regular floor presence and own daily review of Company delivery performance from the customer perspective.
• Track metrics: on-time delivery %, late deliveries, dispatch delays, route hours, driver dwell, DC departure, store arrival, and cost per route.
• Conduct root-cause analysis on service failures and assign clear owners and dates for corrective actions.
• Maintain visibility into permanent driver staffing levels; monitor vacancies, recruitment, turnover, and overtime.
• Challenge dependence on travel drivers and plan transition to a sustainable permanent-driver workforce.
• Review transportation expenses and compare travel-driver costs to permanent driver costs; identify cost-saving opportunities.
• Escalate issues with business impact and provide containment, corrective action plan, owner, and target resolution date.
• Develop strong relationships with 3rd party DC leadership, transportation leadership, operations teams, drivers, and store leadership.
• Periodically visit stores to gather feedback on delivery reliability, timing, mis-ships, damages, and order accuracy.
• Represent the voice of Company stores inside the distribution center and monitor inventory accuracy and recurring issues.

Skills

Leadership

Analytical thinking

Communication

Influencing without authority

Excel

Tools

Excel

Job description

The On-Site Distribution Center Manager serves as Company’s dedicated operational representative within an assigned 3rd party distribution center. This position acts as the primary connection between the Company, the 3rd party, transportation operations, and Company stores. The role is responsible for ensuring 3rd party consistently delivers against Company’s expectations for on-time delivery, order accuracy, product availability, transportation performance, cost control, inventory integrity, and store service. This is a highly visible, hands-on operational position. The Manager will spend significant time on the DC floor, in transportation operations, reviewing routes and loads, analyzing performance data, and identifying issues before they impact Company stores. The Manager does not directly manage 3rd party associates. Instead, the position drives performance through data, operational visibility, relationships, accountability, escalation, and structured follow-up. The successful candidate must be comfortable challenging performance constructively while maintaining a strong working partnership with 3rd party leadership.

Requirements:

• Serve as Company's on-site representative within the 3rd party DC and maintain daily visibility into operations supporting the Company.
• Monitor receiving, inventory, picking, loading, dispatch, transportation, and delivery performance.
• Review daily Company volume, route plans, staffing levels, driver coverage, equipment availability, and operational constraints.
• Identify potential service failures before they impact stores and work with 3rd party leadership to develop immediate recovery plans.
• Maintain regular floor presence rather than managing solely through reports and meetings.
• Own the daily review of Company delivery performance from the customer perspective.
• Track on-time delivery percentage, late deliveries, dispatch delays, route duration, driver dwell, DC departure performance, store arrival performance, routes exceeding planned hours, and repeated problem routes.
• Conduct root-cause analysis on service failures and distinguish between issues caused by DC operations, transportation, driver staffing, route design, store conditions, weather, or other factors.
• Ensure corrective actions have clear owners and completion dates.
• Maintain visibility into permanent driver staffing levels supporting the Company.
• Monitor driver vacancies, recruiting pipeline, new driver starts, training completion, driver turnover, 30/60/90-day retention, overtime, travel-driver utilization, routes covered by travel drivers, and excessive driver hours.
• Challenge recurring dependence on travel drivers and ensure 3rd party maintain a documented plan for transitioning to a sustainable permanent-driver workforce.
• Review transportation expenses associated with supporting Company, with particular attention to premium and non-standard costs.
• Monitor travel-driver expenses including hotels, airfare, rental vehicles, mileage, per diem, overtime, travel time, and other premium driver expenses.
• Compare travel-driver cost per route against permanently assigned driver cost.
• Identify opportunities to reduce transportation cost without negatively affecting store service.
• Escalate recurring expenses that appear to result from structural staffing, routing, or operational issues.
• Partner with 3rd party transportation and Company leadership to evaluate route design and delivery schedules.
• Analyze miles per route, stops per route, planned versus actual route hours, store delivery windows, driver utilization, route consistency, equipment utilization, cost per delivery, and cost per route.
• Identify routes that are operationally unrealistic or consistently create service failures.
• Recommend changes to improve service, driver quality of life, productivity, and cost-to-serve.
• Maintain direct visibility into how DC and transportation performance impacts Company stores.
• Periodically visit stores and speak directly with store leadership regarding delivery reliability, delivery timing, mis-ships, shorts, damages, driver consistency, order accuracy, product availability, and delivery execution.
• Use store feedback alongside 3rd party performance data to identify systemic issues.
• Represent the voice of the Company store inside the distribution center.
• Monitor inventory accuracy and service issues impacting Company.
• Track shorts, mis-picks, mis-ships, damages, out-of-stocks, substitutions, claims, inventory adjustments, and repeat SKU issues.
• Partner with 3rd party to identify root causes and establish corrective actions for recurring problems.
• Develop visibility into the true cost of servicing the Company through the assigned DC.
• Monitor transportation cost, premium freight, travel-driver expense, overtime, route cost, cost per case, cost per stop, claims and damages, re-deliveries, and service recovery costs.
• Identify opportunities to remove unnecessary costs while protecting service.
• Maintain a structured Company/3rd party performance scorecard covering service, transportation, operations, and financial performance.
• Key measures should include On-Time Delivery %, Order Accuracy %, Fill Rate, store service issues, planned vs. actual route hours, late routes, driver staffing %, travel drivers used, travel-driver expense, driver overtime, routes exceeding target hours, picking/loading accuracy, damages, shorts, mis-ships, cost per case, cost per stop, cost per route, and premium transportation expense.
• Provide Company leadership with clear, fact-based visibility into 3rd party performance.
• Escalate issues based on business impact rather than simply forwarding problems.
• When escalating an issue, provide: What happened; why it happened; store/business impact; immediate containment; long-term corrective action; owner; and expected resolution date.
• Develop strong relationships with 3rd party DC leadership, transportation leadership, operations teams, drivers, and Company field/store leadership.

Qualifications:

• 3-7+ years of distribution, transportation, logistics, supply chain, or 3PL operations experience.
• 3+ years of leadership or operational management experience.
• Strong understanding of high-volume distribution center operations and transportation/route delivery.
• Experience working with 3PL providers or outsourced logistics operations.
• Strong analytical and financial skills with the ability to interpret operational KPIs and identify root causes.
• Strong Excel/data-analysis capability and excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to influence partners without direct authority.
• Willingness to work on-site and maintain significant operational floor presence.
• Convenience-store, grocery, foodservice, retail, or consumer-products distribution experience.
• Experience managing or overseeing dedicated contract carriage or private-fleet operations.
• Experience with driver recruiting and retention, route optimization, 3PL performance and contractual KPIs.