“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion”
-W. Edwards Deming
Imagine that you work as the head of logistics for a manufacturer, in one of their plants. You need to ship a plethora of products to many customers. Any issue, at any point in your logistics chain causes delays, and delays cost you money!
When something does go wrong, you need to find out what it is and fix it as soon as possible. The logical questions to ask yourself in this situation are, “How do I find out what the delay is?”, “Is there another possible way available to carry this shipment for me?”, “Is this a priority order or can I risk delaying the delivery?”.
How do you get the answer to these questions without an unnecessary waste of time? Looking into a single aspect of your logistics chain, searching for errors, will take you time. Let alone the entire operation. How do you get the data you need to make an informed decision?
The solution is simple; An Integrated Logistics framework that connects your various logistics teams and partners and provides real time updates of each individual operation within your logistics chain. Or to put it simply, an End to End (E2E) solution.
But responding to disruptions is just one of the many benefits of using an E2E Logistics Platform.
A Shipper’s logistics chain is the life blood of a manufacturing plant. The efficiency of a manufacturing company is heavily dependent upon how quickly raw materials can be brought in and how swiftly finished goods can be shipped out. There are numerous checks and balances along the way to make sure that the maximum potential is being derived out of this system. The existing systems that are used to govern these processes tend to be large amalgamations of various tools that perform specific tasks.
Shippers normally use one system to place, track and finalize orders. They then rely on a completely different system to manage their logistics vendors, and yet another to provide the actual tracking of the shipment en route to the customer. Collecting the proof of delivery and tracking the payment statuses of each shipment may be handled by yet another system.
The problems faced by Shippers who run multiple software solutions in their logistics chains are many, and the diversity in the nature of the problems themselves is vast. I’ve listed a few of them below.
- Software integration is complicated and time consuming.
- Any one solution not working causes the entire system to malfunction.
- Upgrades/Scaling up the software for the future is near impossible and almost always more expensive and complicated than it should be.
- The testing period for this amalgamated software is longer than the industry average.
- Differences in Look, Feel and Operation can seriously jar the users, creating an unpleasant or difficult experience.
- If the software is built using different frameworks, in the case of coding changes, multiple specialized teams will be required.
- Security issues due to multiple software interacting with one another.
- Visibility of the chain may be compromised.
- Manual overrides are difficult to implement.
An End to End (E2E) solution not only solves these problems, it also gives added value to the Shipper in the form of boosted efficiency, reduced maintenance costs and consistency in operation. E2E Logistics Solutions are built based upon the principles of End to End Logistics Planning.
As the name suggests, E2E Logistics Planning is a holistic approach to solving the problems posed by logistics management. A single platform is used to handle all the various operations of the logistics chain. E2E systems provide a consistent user experience, and the ability to improve the quality of the interactions between its various user roles. It reduces the need to invest in multiple software systems and even reduces the loads placed on the Shipper’s IT framework.
E2E Logistics Solutions allow you to get the most out of your logistics!
The functionalities addressed by E2E Logistics Platforms include (but are not limited to):
Load Building
Load building allows the logistics team to create “ideal” truck loads that utilize the entire carrying capacity of the fleet servicing the Shipper. It allows the shipper to maximize the efficiency of the delivery process.
Vendor Collaboration
Vendor collaboration refers to the act of informing your logistics partners of shipments that need to be delivered, and obtaining commitments back from them stating how and when the shipments can be carried out.
In Plant Tracking
In plant tracking provides the Shipper with the ability to calculate his TAT (Turn Around Time) within the plant. If there are any bottlenecks between the truck entering the plant and leaving it to make a delivery, In Plant Tracking allows you to identify and rectify it.
Trip Tracking
Trip tracking refers to the ability to track a shipment once it leaves the plant, while it’s en route to the customer. Trip tracking may include advanced features such as Journey Risk Management, and the ability to send and receive alerts during emergencies.
Proof of Delivery
Once the shipment reaches the customer, the Shipper would like to know if it has reached On Time, In Full. If the shipment was damaged or if it faced any other problems, the Shipper needs to be notified. This information is crucial to the Shipper as it directly affects his customer’s satisfaction.
One of the key measures of the success of a business is the level of its customer’s satisfaction. This is measured at different stages, against various standards. For logistics, the golden standard is the customer’s expectations. E2E Logistics Solutions helps you capitalize on your logistics chains, to ensure that you meet and even exceed these expectations.
With constant increases in the processing power and reliability provided by cloud computing and big data analysis, the advantages of E2E systems far outweigh those of the classical systems, with their relatively limited scope for interactions and upgrades. With E2E Logistics Solutions, issue identification is far simpler and the various teams involved with logistics have a clear idea of what is required out of them to resolve these issues. Add to this the ease with which the system can be reconfigured, without having to rely on multiple teams with multiple specializations, and you will get an idea of why companies are busy studying the best way to implement E2E Logistics Solutions for their supply chains.
Autoplant has accumulated nearly a decade’s worth of experience working with leading manufacturing companies and their logistics chains. This experience has primarily been in the field of providing solutions for logistics and supply chain management related quandaries. Leveraging this experience, Autoplant finds itself in the unique position of being able to provide a flexible, consistent, and robust E2E logistics solution. In addition to its modular approach to the various operations mentioned above, Autoplant’s E2E logistics solution allows for minimal friction during deployment and upgrades. When the time comes to make changes to your logistics chain, be it new processes being put into place or changes brought about by policy shifts, the Autoplant E2E logistics platform can be implemented with ease.
