American Dental Cooperative's National Freight Program is another invaluable service offered to cooperative members. This program focuses on reducing inbound and outbound freight costs for ADC members.

ADC utilizes Freight Watch, Inc., a company which specializes in reducing freight costs for its clients. Each year, Freight Watch identifies potential carriers to service ADC members and distributes bid packets for ADC's national program. The selection of carriers is based on pricing, service, and member input. While price is an integral part of any freight cost-management program, the quality of service received is equally important.

Freight Watch consolidates and prepares summary statements on a weekly basis, then forwards these to members for payment to all carriers. The company also provides prepayment audits, eliminating the possibility of duplicate payments and allowing for incorrect freight bills to be corrected prior to member payment. In addition, Freight Watch provides easy identification of misrouted shipments, allowing an opportunity for the members to issue vendor chargebacks.

Other services provided by Freight Watch include monthly management reports, annual communication of shipping instructions to all manufacturers, and development of custom routing guides by member by manufacturer.