Five Reasons for a Mobility Solution in Your Supply Chain

From distribution to doorstep, a mobile supply chain application provides visibility and many other advantages.

We live in a mobile, connected world. Why should your supply chain be any different? A mobility solution can support business plans to optimize workflow capabilities, improve communications, cut unnecessary expense, maximize visibility, and provide a world-class customer experience. It provides organizations the freedom to employ tried-and-true workflows, along with the flexibility to apply unique processes to suit customers. The benefits extend across the entire supply chain process.

Here are five top reasons to add a mobile application to your supply chain solution suite:

1. Work smarter with better planning tools. The ability to scale infrastructure and business processes while gaining efficiencies to improve service offerings is essential. A mobility solution provides a community environment for multiple parties to access and collaborate on a common platform, maintaining service levels in the face of high volume and velocity without affecting the bottom line.

Users are able to correct mistakes before a delivery departs, which costs virtually nothing. However, at the point of the delivery, the penalty can be more significant. Loss of wrongly delivered goods, re-deliveries, handling customer complaints, compensatory credits, loss of trust, penalties, and dissatisfied customers ultimately cost both time and money.

Whether you are a driver or supply chain manager, you can stay connected with in-built messaging, as well as book and manage jobs, increase drivers and depot workforce, and schedule and assign jobs through a mobility platform, with all job surcharges and accessorial codes being captured.

2. Quicker access and faster movements. Companies spend hundreds of thousands, and even millions, to control freight before it hits the road. Managing the movement of freight within yard or depot and cross dock is vital for time and efficiency. With a mobile solution, you put the power of speed and accuracy in the hands of dock staff to move items through the warehouse faster, avoid unnecessary storage, maximize communication and tracking, and drastically reduce movement-related costs

A mobility solution enables you to capture freight data and reconcile invoices and structured billing, as well as review pallet spaces and item counts for the bill. Containers can be tracked and managed, and their contents viewed, with cross-dock capabilities reducing the cost of their movement. Better yet, mobility solutions enable you to group together multiple packages for a single customer, as well as to manifest freight loading and scanning. All of this eliminates the use of paper!

3. Visibility for carriers and shippers. Without visibility into transportation processes, companies are forced to utilize more LTL (less-than-truckload) than TL (truckload), resulting in higher costs per mile, more empty miles, and an increase in carbon emissions. Having access to a large carrier network that’s easily web accessible and robust allows transportation management to run seamlessly across all points of operation.

With access to real-time data, users are able to make informed decisions. They can see delivery performance and rates, undertake multiple stock counting functionalities, and manage stock keeping unit (SKU) barcode masks. All of the above ultimately enhances business intelligence and paves the way for better reporting.

The benefits increase when a mobility solution is integrated with other supply chain execution applications. For example, mobility integrated with TMS and YMS on a single platform enables key visibility among shippers, dock staff, and drivers, to track shipment status with the ability to change delivery times and locations.

4. Enhanced driver capabilities. Commercial drivers know the main roads like the back of their hands. But when it comes to last-mile delivery, local roads require local knowledge. A mobility solution allows you to manage all of the on-road processes for a successful delivery and pick up of all freight. Not only can you find the best route with pinpoint location accuracy, but now you can also avoid challenges such as low bridges, weight restrictions, and other road-delay factors.

With a mobility solution, GPS is captured at regular intervals and when certain actions are performed. Through the hands-free driver safe platform, drivers are able to review job details and special instructions. In addition, the platform captures signatures, pin numbers, photo IDs and GPS location, and encompasses driver-specific actions, such as securing, delivering and swapping photo ID. Proof of collection and deliveries are logged and jobs are marked as complete, even if offline.

5. Giving customers the power. Delivering a positive customer experience is a growing measure of success in supply chain. A mobility solution provides an interactive mobile interface for customers, and the ability for your business to scale and adapt to their needs. Whether your business is B2B or B2C, giving customers control and visibility of their shipments in the last mile can boost loyalty and customer satisfaction.

With an easy-to-navigate portal, customers have an interactive platform to track and trace in real time, and receive notifications and alerts via SMS. Customers are in control of where and when deliveries are made, and two-way communication between the driver and customer allows the delivery location to be changed up until the final stages of delivery.

The benefits of a mobility solution are significant, providing people the ability to complete their work, anywhere, anytime, while giving visibility of these activities to those that need it – be it drivers, managers, customers, or others across the supply chain. From functionality to infrastructure, the implementation of a mobility solution is quick and seamless, providing immediate results and value. The right solution can fundamentally change your operations, with your drivers, managers, other workers, and customers all staying informed with what is happening at anytime and anywhere in the field, ultimately meaning organizations can be more proactive. For more information, read FROM THE FIRST MILE TO THE FINAL MILE – How to Offer Local Service on a Global Scale.

Katie Kinraid is General Manager, APAC, at BluJay Solutions, where she oversees all sales, marketing, and general administrative roles in the Asia-Pacific region for the supply chain software and services provider. She is also the product owner for BluJay’s MobileSTAR solution.