With an evolution in the transportation and logistics industry, you need a parallel solution to keep up with the dynamics. Working in silos can cause you some serious complications and even losses. Ideally, an ERP for Transportation can change the game.
The transportation industry is prone to shortcomings, some of the challenges include yard and terminal slow functioning due to manual handling of all the operations, inventory management while operating rails, maintaining warehouses, and inability to deliver products promptly. However, with slight changes in your business operational approach you can level up your transportation management.
So, we can conclude that integrating a unified fleet management software to your ERP for transportation doesn’t only automate your business operations but also accomplish goals with utmost precision.
Analyze your transportation and Plan Costs/ Time Efficiency
One of the largest costs in logistics classifies under transportation, especially it is poorly planned and implemented. It influenced delivery timeframes and Return on Investments, especially if the product is damaged. Use a transportation software solution, since it can offer real-time data at hand. Determine your most fund swallowing areas. You might initiate truck sales and check if the trucks are optimally carrying loads.
Automate Order Allocation
ERP for transportation and logistics can help you automatically allocate orders. Considering a situation where your business receives up to fifty orders a day, it is pretty easy for your team to manage them according to their type, size, and weight. However, what if the count doubles? Not so easy anymore, right? Using a transportation management solution can help your current ERP to check up on your orders and classify them accordingly. Once the categorization process is done, it looks for the most appropriate vehicle to proceed with delivery.
Adopt Smart Warehousing
Warehouses can be tricky to manage since they are overlapped with multiple technical and nontechnical operations such as receiving, picking, staging, loading and monitoring. Digitize your warehouse management by integrating your supply chain, and monitor and track related activities in real-time. Allowing automation for managing your warehouse, gives transparent visibility, dynamic fulfillment, suitable software, and hardware customized according to your needs.
Automate Yard Terminal and Rail Operations
Adopt a Yard Terminal software or a Rail Depot Software to cut on manual processing. It will eventually streamline your workflow and speed operations. It can even allow eliminating waiting time and enhance the output. You can even be offered new reinforced regulations for a safer and more productive yard.
Estimate and Redefine Operating Standards
To minimize wastage and help your teamwork as a close-Knit unit, restructure your standard operating procedure. It is not as complicated as many perceive it to be. Ensure a free information flow across the chain, adopt a double-checking system to avoid human-caused errors and double shipments.
Adopt a TMS for Freight Forwarding
If your business is primarily based on freight forwarding, it is recommended to enhance the shipping process with a TMS since it is designed to streamline this process in the organization. You can avail yourself of technology such as transit time, quotes, real-time alerts, and transit times. An amalgamation of custom reports and carriers offers shippers a unified platform to back up their transportation decisions.
How Automation Tackles Transportation Challenges?
There are other challenges involved, that you can easily resolve with a suitable Transport and Logistics Software such as:
Vehicle Capacity
When it comes to vehicle capacity, the transportation industry may come across multiple hurdles. You need an entire team to study and analyze your vehicle capacity. Resulting in too much time and effort consumed, which could have been used in other production operations. Furthermore, there are high chances of committing mistakes in this case, since manual work is prone to imperfections.
However, with a suitable, preferably unified fleet management software, you can look up trivial vehicle details of each minute, ensuring correct vehicle allocation. It can calculate its type, capacity, volume, and weight and ensure optimum deliveries with a single-vehicle. In other words, you can optimally utilize your vehicles.
Route Planning
One of the major reasons for not meeting deliveries on time is poor route planning. Additionally, it can even cause more driving time, greater maintenance cost, and idling of the engine while stuck in traffic.
A TMS can optimally find and strategize routes. The main issue arises when the customer changes their delivery address once the order is out already, yet you can easily overcome it with a unified transportation management solution. Once the driver gets the notification about customer rescheduling, their new route is rescheduled.
Consignment Tracking
You might need a whole team to manage hundreds of calls in a day to keep track of your consignment status if you do it manually
With transparent trip visibility, a company tracks and monitors their entire trip and maintains trust with the customers. Besides, this even allows drivers to create and manage their trips followed by uploading digitized proof of delivery and much more.
Order Delivery
Late deliveries can damage your regulation in the eyes of the customer. Customers might hesitate about your services if they can’t track them. A consistent practice of late deliveries can hamper your client base which may even result in business losses.
The Transport Management Software shares a link with the customer for them to track their order right then and there. It even gives them a firsthand experience of rescheduling their delivery, picking time slots, and sharing feedback.
If you are looking for ERP for transportation, a Trident Information System is just the right choice for you, as Microsoft Gold Partners since 2004, we have served various businesses. For further queries or a demo, you may contact us.
