To compete in today’s world, companies must learn to leverage the benefits of new technologies that ensure that their workforces remain competitive with the changing trends. A similar concept has emerged as a subset of supply chain management which is used for better logistics management for shippers.
Transportation Management System:
TMS (also known as a transportation management solution or transportation management software) helps to streamline the process of transportation by making sure shipment is compliant and documentation is proper. Being a logistics platform that utilizes technology, it increases the ease for businesses to plan, implement, execute and optimize the movement of incoming and outgoing goods (whether they are by land, air, or water). In simple words, you are one click away for obtaining information related to day-to-day transportation operations.
Users:
It is extensively used by distribution companies, e-comm organizations, retail businesses and can be primarily used by any business that needs to ship, move, and receive goods frequently. Anyone moving freight on a regular basis always looks for ideas to optimize spending, time, and improving the overall processes. Thanks to transportation management systems (TMS), shippers finally have a quick way out.
Challenges in traditional systems:
1. Dialing different carriers and requesting quotes can be a time-consuming process, thus it becomes important to keep quotes organized.
2. Different shipments may need different carriers thus you need to identify the right carrier.
3. Due to the presence of different carriers, the freight tracking process acts as a challenge that comes along with inevitable human errors
4. It’s hard to gather accurate insights without the right technology adoption and creates reporting a tedious task involving a lot of time and workforce
Smaller businesses, until now have traditionally relied on spreadsheets and moreover some manual methods to manage transportation records. However, now cloud-based solutions are here and this makes it more affordable for even the smaller companies to invest in this software so there’s less need to think twice before implementing it.
Benefits:
1. Reduce freight expenses:
Due to efficient management of workforce and software, the labor and space use coordination between the transportation functions better which leads to reduced distribution costs to the business and ultimately to the end customer. The optimization also leads to better performance.
2. Improves Visibility:
Shippers gain benefits from improved visibility to their supply chain operations by tracking freight and receiving alerts on a single platform. This helps to plan and optimize inventory levels as it helps in forecasting using the in-depth insights. This improves the management of their inbound operations and warehouse. It also simplifies the carrier selection process and overall supply chain
3. Warehouse efficiency:
TMS facilitates business to attain real-time updates and fewer shipment delays. This helps to eliminate stress and unnecessary time spent overbooking. Also, TMS saves time due to automation.
4. Improved cash flows:
TMS minimizes penalties and reduces human error to a great extent by providing more accurate billing. By employing proper transportation accounting and reporting, through freight payment, and consolidation services, using a TMS, the company can save more in this way rather than employing an outsourced provider.
5. Better customer satisfaction:
Using the past reporting and analytics the company is able to see the results of the decisions made and devise future strategies using this valuable information. It can even scale the business by achieving higher levels of customer satisfaction due to it’s quicker and timely shipments.
The Scope:
The ever-changing global trade trends force supply chains to innovate at a rapid pace to cope up with the competitors.
Thus, there is a need to integrate the technological processes by investing in a transportation management system to make the entire system more robust and faster. Artificial intelligence and Machine learning algorithms help in providing digital assistance to cater to rising consumer expectations. Not only for on-time deliveries but also predictions and real-time updates tends to make the entire system more efficient and feature-rich. It works hand in hand with ERP and WMS for better coordination to produce the best results.
Even if you are a small business or already have a significant footprint in your industry, you’ll realize that TMS is an investment to improve visibility of the process and offer better customer service by collaborating with technology. It holistically helps your business to maximize ROI.
So are you ready to invest?
