transportation management Archives

A new path forward in supply chain technology

Guest Commentary | By Glenn Jones • 08/26/2021

Supply chain is an industry slow to change. Large shippers still use Excel spreadsheets to plan their operations, and even the most beneficial logistics technology is sometimes looked at warily. If it isn’t broken, these stakeholders reason, there’s nothing to fix.

Logistics isn’t alone in this hesitancy to embrace technology, but the benefits of injecting agility into current processes, creating automatic procedures instead of relying on manual work, and streamlining operations can be profound. The evolving logistics issues brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing port congestion and the continued acceleration of significant and devastating weather events are wreaking havoc on supply chains around the globe. Logistics technology brings agility, orchestration and advanced planning into the mix, so stakeholders can weather the current supply chain issues and react quickly to opportunities and disruptions as they appear.

In the current supply chain technology community, companies have focused on TMS applications, but it is no longer enough to simply integrate transportation processes and technologies in a TMS. Stakeholders need agile solutions to handle the speed and volatility of the “new normal.” Transportation’s explosive growth, the complexity of the networks and frequent capacity constraints have created an environment that requires a true digital operating platform for transportation.

Supply chain technology that is “beyond TMS” adds an array of necessary components. Agility allows stakeholders to make changes on the fly, correcting shipment plans to overcome logistics disruptions and take advantage of opportunities. Users should also be able to access a carrier network to find cost effective capacity when needed. Finally, users should be able to focus on the sustainability of their transportation choices starting with the order.

An easy way to think of it is the system should be able to use any system to plan, track and adjust. The planning stage means that users can plot routes using variable lead times, cost implications and intelligent historical data, monitoring changes as the scheduled ship date approaches. Tracking seems straightforward, but it’s important to make sure any technology offers end-to-end visibility and continuously updated ETAs that check that orders are traveling on time, providing notifications when orders may be late or early. The adjust metric should allow users to make corrections to shipments, viewing recommended alternate modes, carriers, service levels and routes to bring shipments back on track.

The convergence of TMS and logistics visibility is here. Working without that convergence creates a yawning gap between the capabilities of standard TMS applications and the latest shipment visibility capabilities. Supply chain planning and adaptability to logistics disruptions is the major challenge facing the global supply chain.

COVID changed everything. Visibility became so much more important, and it became clear that shipment transparency wasn’t all that was needed: visibility must stay tied into execution, all the way back to the order, so stakeholders not only always know where their goods are, but they can change course as needed. Visibility and execution working in tandem gives supply chains agility; efficiency is no longer enough.

Technology can help drive mission-critical goals that apply to every supply chain stakeholder. Supply chain orchestration can help remove waste from the global supply chain, streamlining processes while enabling agile reactions to logistics problems. This waste reduction plays into the quest toward a greener supply chain, a goal that will become even more pressing in the years to come. This can all be achieved by linking supply chain stakeholders together on a global, neutral platform that allows all parties to share a cloud-based single version of the truth. But this link can’t simply consist of the major transportation and logistics players; to truly achieve the next level of supply chain technology – agility, optimization and visibility all rolled into a single platform – even the smallest trucking companies and logistics firms need to be involved. Democratizing technology for the mom-and-pop transportation companies adds their capacity to the system, propping up the supply chain ecosystem while it allows them to compete on a global level.

To become part of the next wave of supply chain technology, stakeholders should look for a multimodal digital operating platform transforming the transportation management system status quo.

Glenn Jones is global vice president of product strategy and marketing for carbon-neutral supply chain technology provider Blume Global. He has a proven track record of growing businesses by building and leading R&D and product marketing organizations to define, develop, position and sell highly innovative and high value enterprise solutions delivered in the cloud. He was formerly the COO of Sweetbridge, the CTO of Steelwedge Software and also held leadership positions at other supply chain software companies including Elementum, E2Open and i2 Technologies.

Editor’s Choice: Dodge Disruption Using Smarter Transportation Management

Transportation Management Systems | By Chris Cunnane • 06/03/2021

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. Today’s article is from Open Sky Group and highlights the need for a smarter transportation management system.

Dodge ball. Mention the game and almost everyone has something to say. But have you ever associated it with supply chain life in 2020? We have, and it serves as a lesson in how to better plan for business continuity considering unforeseen chaos, calamity, and emergencies certain to come in the future.

In the supply chain business, just as in dodge ball, agility marked the survivors of 2020 by their ability to shift in the face of lockdowns, plummeting oil prices, and a buckling stock market. Smart operators were able to scale their workforces to meet fluctuating demands. They negotiated better prices and found more efficient routes. They were able to tap into their environments in real-time and predict with reliability what might happen next, placing themselves in the best position to succeed. And, more often than not, it was a modernized, intelligent approach to transportation management that gave them the critical edge.

Modernized, Smarter, TMS Explained

So, what is a modernized, smarter transportation management system, or TMS, and how can you obtain one? Let’s just say it hinges on two key fundamentals: consistency and transparency in operations.

Consistency in Operations

Consistent, standardized processes and business rules provide a solid footing for your teams no matter where they are or what market conditions come their way. With processes and procedures well established, supported by common tools and automation to help carry the load, costs come down, timelines condense, and growth can be scaled in an orderly, predictable fashion.

Transparency

Likewise, with a fully connected view of your extended supply chain, you can see opportunities emerge, sidestep stumbling blocks as they occur, and optimize routes, loads, and work schedules for maximum performance based on informed business decisions. With all your gaps covered, transparency is secured.

From there, a modernized, smarter TMS will help you plan intelligently, using accurate data to analyze more cost-effective routes or test “what if” responses against various disaster scenarios. Knowing your service and cost trade-offs in different contexts ahead of time can help you slip through tight spots and come out ahead of your competition.

To read the full article, click HERE.

Manhattan Associates Launches Manhattan Active Transportation Management

Transportation Management Systems | By Chris Cunnane • 06/02/2021

From a historical perspective, transportation management systems are all about freight savings. However, with the ongoing pandemic, and the resulting capacity crunch, TMS is trending more towards cost mitigation rather than savings. Manhattan Associates unveiled its latest TMS, Manhattan Active Transportation Management, last week during the company’s virtual user conference. Manhattan Active TM was redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up to for a new level of innovation, agility, and scale to meet the changing transportation landscape.

Manhattan Active TM incorporates a broad range of enhancements including the new cloud-native architecture, redesigned user experience, and new productivity enhancements. The enhancements to the solution are grouped into three main categories: unification, simplification, and performance.

Unification

When Manhattan went about building its Manhattan Active Transportation Management solution, unification across the entire supply chain was a key focus. Manhattan Active TM joins Manhattan Active WM to eliminate some of the issues that surround integration and forms the new Active Supply Chain. From an integration standpoint, time is the fundamental issue. Upgrades to one solution can impact others, which can inhibit agility. The new solution no longer requires data to be passed between WM and TM as the two run as a unified application on Manhattan Active technology.

From a user experience standpoint, this is important. There is now one user experience across TM and WM, with no upgrades needed based on the cloud architecture. The solution has common components, architecture, and nomenclature. The integration between TM and WM also integrates the inbound and outbound flow of goods. This has an impact on labor scheduling within the warehouse depending on what is coming in or out. The combined platform streamlines this process, enabling rapid labor adjustments on inbound shipments and more flexibility on outbound shipments.

Aside from unifying TM and WM, Manhattan Active TM has a number of functional improvements around unified optimization. The first piece is around multi-modal shipment planning. There is now a unified planning process for Manhattan Active TM. This unification spans across all modes, including ocean, air, rail, intermodal, TL, LTL, and PCL. Each mode comes with its own set of rules (mode, carrier, multi-stops, etc.) which can be adjusted depending on a user’s requirements. Manhattan Active TM also includes mode shopping and consolidation on any path through a network.

Manhattan Active TM enables unification across all resources. Users can optimize across assets and lanes simultaneously, looking at private fleet, dedicated fleet, and contract carriers. This allows customers to manage fleets differently depending on the territory or business rules, and they can configure rules based on how a customer defines assets.

The final piece worth mentioning is unified control. With Manhattan Active TM, there is now real-time information flow across business functions. This enables actionable insights that span supply chain solutions. Unified control also makes for a unified experience. For users, there is a congruent experience on mobile and desktop for carrier user engagement.

Simplification

When Manhattan redesigned and rebuilt its TMS on the Manhattan Active platform, another main goal was simplicity. Considering that optimization is highly complex, the new solution was designed to be easier for the customer. Building a solution to meet every need becomes more complicated. Manhattan looked at a few key areas to focus on simplicity.

Manhattan Active TM has a network analyzer. This allows users to optimally match supply with demand across the network while maximizing profitability. It also helps to maintain a network balance. There is no parameter set required for optimization. In fact, all parameters are auto-tuned. This means that during the solve, optimization learns what it needs to do and autotunes the parameter settings. Optimization becomes more dynamic as the settings never become stale.

Manhattan also ensured that there is simplicity in configuration. As the business changes, the optimization automatically adjusts. Users need to focus on overrides only, rather than making other changes. This is due to the use of adaptive algorithms. In the end, this allows users to focus on the task at hand rather than the complexities that run behind the scenes.

Performance

Manhattan Active TM takes advantage of cloud architecture and resources to make it extremely performant. Manhattan Active TM is built on a cloud-native technology platform designed for extensibility, ease of upgrade, and scalability. Much of these capabilities are enabled by the solution design of self-contained functional application components. For users, there is never a need to worry about version control. The Manhattan Active solution set is designed to be versionless, with all solutions always running on the latest code.

Manhattan outlined the key areas where the power of cloud technology improves performance. Namely, Manhattan Active TM has in-memory database, making it capable of millions of calculations per second. The cloud architecture also means access to more data, faster, for better planning execution. Users have improved information flow through connections to real-time visibility partners. Customers can also add capacity easier and faster with connections to more carriers and load boards.

Manhattan Manhattan Active TM also improved broadcast capabilities. These improvements include the ability to auto-broadcast to remaining carriers if the preferred carriers or contract carriers decline a load. Customers also have access on the go with TM mobile carrier. This is important as now actionable insights and intelligence across supply chain functions are more easily delivered.

Final Thought

This article only touches on a few of the recent capability updates within Manhattan Active Transportation Management. Many of these are incremental enhancements from prior versions, as the company has been moving towards a unified platform since the launch of the Manhattan Active solution set. The move to a cloud-based architecture has helped to speed along the journey towards a unified, simple, and high performing TMS.

Profitably Delivering eCommerce with Consumer-Centric Priorities

Logistics Technologies | By Terence Leung • 05/27/2021

Five Forces Reshaping Logistics as We Know it

Because warehousing and transportation represent significant cost centers, intelligent logistics decisions are critical. And, more than ever, these decisions have to be made on the fly, in real-time. As logistics managers grapple with their own challenges, including labor shortages and emerging commodity marketplaces, the logistics function has never been under more pressure to deliver.

Forget what you knew about logistics. Even before the emergence of COVID-19, next-day and same-day delivery promises from mega retailers, as well as new delivery models such as store pick-up, were driving increasing customer expectations — not just in retail, but in every industry. Every day, retailers and manufacturers are challenged to balance ambitious customer service promises with profit margin protection.

In my Logistics Viewpoints article in April 2021, Building Profitability with Agility while Digitally Transforming the Supply Chain, I mentioned that we will continue to explore here the concrete steps in the digital journey and examples of determination from the top in addition to logistics operations.

Uberization: Exploring On-Demand Transportation, Labor and Warehousing

In the consumer sector, few recent trends have been as disruptive as the new on-demand marketplace for commodities like transportation and lodging, driven by Uber and VRBO. In fact, the on-demand industry was estimated to account for $75 billion in 2018.[1] Now that same concept is poised to similarly disrupt the world of distribution.

While the need to keep up with the delivery promises of mega-retailers has made many companies blind to the true costs of their transportation, labor and warehousing activities, digitalization is opening their eyes. Today the concept of on-demand distribution is increasing companies’ ability to gain a marketplace perspective on these capabilities, treat them as commodities and compare the financial contributions of various options. This is foundational to achieving profitable agility as demand and supply remain volatile.

IoT capabilities have long helped to track the location of transportation assets, communicate with employees and support real-time collaboration in the warehouse. But the real financial value of advanced technology resides in its ability to sense real-time demand and monitor supply availability ― then secure on-demand transportation, warehousing and labor assets dynamically, re-planning flexibly as conditions change.

Today’s expanded transportation, warehousing and labor networks provide companies with many more options, which means greater bargaining power. Transportation assets, warehousing space and human workers can be optimally scheduled, and rescheduled, based on real-time or near-term demand signals. Extending visibility of available capacities in the market enables a more effective result, often delivering win-wins for collaborative trading partners.

How great can the impact be? Consider warehousing space. Historically, companies needing greater warehouse capacity would have invested in new construction ― a large capital expense that typically requires five years of operation to achieve a full return on investment. Or they might have leased space, which traditionally requires a long-term commitment and involves a one- to three-year payback on the investment.¹

In today’s fast-moving, on-demand marketplace, the warehousing capacity commitment can be made on a monthly basis, via short-term outsourcing. This means that not only is the financial investment low ― making a fast return on investment (ROI) fairly likely ― but that the supply chain has maximum flexibility as conditions change. Capacity can be easily ramped up or down due to product seasonality, holidays and of course global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the on-demand concept does not end with transportation, labor and warehousing. Extended offerings around value-added services, co-packing, co-manufacturing and even 3D printing will continue to deliver options that allow agility and scale in supply chain operations, with third-party logistics providers coordinating much of this capacity as they morph into super-grid logistics services providers.

As the supply chain becomes increasingly digital and collaborative, new partnerships may be formed by retailers, distributors and manufacturers to collectively source services and capitalize on economies of scale. This will help drive agility, optimize the customer experience, and ensure profits for all trading partners.

A Top-Level Vision Is Key to Enabling Agility

While the advanced technologies are widely available to support the extreme level of agility required for an uncertain world, often the barrier to successful adoption is cultural. At both the executive and lower levels, there may be resistance to adopting AI, ML, automation, analytics and other concepts that threaten to replace “the way we’ve always done things.”

In a McKinsey surveyed, 59% of participants stated that a lack of executive vision was a significant obstacle to the digital transformation of their organization.[2] In the “average” and “below average” companies in a CSCMP publication, 20% of respondents said a lack of management support, funding and resources was hindering supply chain innovation ― double the rate of the most innovative companies, where only 10% called this a significant challenge.[3]

When DHL Supply Chain determined that automation and robotics could play a critical role in increasing customer value and workforce productivity, CEO Oscar de Bok announced a $2.2 billion commitment to advanced robotics implementations. The company also created a digitalization plan, stretching to 2025, which was shared with customers and employees. In an interview with Supply Chain, de Bok said, “We believe to be truly innovative, an idea has to be rolled out throughout the entire organization…we are not going to wait for customers to tell us what will happen tomorrow, we will tell our customers.”[4]

Supply chain technology investments were once delegated to a specific function such as procurement or logistics. But in the extremely unpredictable post COVID-19 business environment, these investments are critical in delivering the essential capability of agility. As such, they must be a priority for every supply chain stakeholder, from the shop floor to the C-suite ― and beyond the walls of the enterprise. The payoff is well worth it. A recent survey by PWC demonstrated that the most innovative supply chain leaders ― called “Digital Supply Chain Champions” ― fully recoup their financial investments in digitalization in just 1.8 years.[5]

Today, every supply chain has the ability to adopt the advanced technologies needed to drive agility. Those who act quickly will seize a powerful advantage in identifying and capturing opportunities via supply chain digitalization. Those who hang onto traditional ways of doing business ― including manual processes, siloed functions, fixed assets and best guesses ― will fall behind as the world around them continues to be completely transformed.

Enabling Agility via Advanced Technologies.

The five advanced technologies highlighted below are emerging as competitive imperatives in establishing agility and resiliency across the logistics organization. Whether they’re retailers, manufacturers, or third-party logistics providers, companies must adopt and master these five technologies in order to:

Identify and manage disruptions
Deliver ecommerce-caliber service levels
Implement successful omnichannel strategies and business models
Achieve end-to-end visibility and control
Make optimal decisions that protect profit margins

Fortunately, the world’s leading logistics teams are already implementing these advanced technologies, creating a wealth of expertise and best practices that other companies can draw upon. The innovations helping this crucial change include:

Human + Machine: Robotics, cobots, drones, and warehouse automation improve productivity and reduce human errors
IoT and Telematics: Detection and monitoring tools increase real-time visibility, improve quality, and support optimal decisions
Autonomous vehicles: Driverless trucks, forklifts and drones deliver enhanced efficiency and safety
Collaboration and connectivity: Digital partnerships increase visibility and responsiveness across the logistics network
Intelligent problem solving: Advanced algorithms, AI, and ML detect and manage issues autonomously

Now, logistics providers and shippers are accelerating the pace to adopt new technologies to serve customer-first and eCommerce expectations. The logistics landscape has been completely transformed with consumer expectations driving next day and same-day delivery across industries. For the hyper-connected supply chain to come to satisfying these expectations, unifying logistics and advanced technologies will accelerate the journey to improve. Learn more about acceleration of the journey here.

The acceleration of technology is enough to give anyone pause. The opportunity these advancements present are unprecedented but also forces us to really understand what data is there across the supply chain and how we can use it to drive profitability and growth. In the next article, we will discuss the lessons learned from the customer sessions at our Blue Yonder ICON event this year and on June 8^th the 3PL Execution Forum on Delivering eCommerce with Consumer-Centric Era, moderated by Steve Banker of ARC Advisory.

[1] “On the Unique Features and Benefits of On-Demand Distribution Models”, Pazour, Jennifer A. and Unnu, Kaan

[2] “The Next Horizon For Industrial Manufacturing: Adopting Disruptive Digital Technologies in Making and Delivering,” McKinsey Digital (November 15, 2018)

[3] “Focus on Customer Experience Research on Supply Chain Priorities and Investments,” The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (2019)

[4] “DHL: Driving Global Standardisation of Operations with Robotics,” by Georgia Wilson, Supply Chain, January 16, 2020

[5] “Connected and Autonomous Supply Chain Ecosystems 2025,” PWC Global

Terence Leung is Senior Director, Solutions Marketing at Blue Yonder. He has a keen interest in digitalization and the value it generates throughout the supply chain. In this role, he leads his organization to drive thought leadership and go-to-market strategy for supply chain execution and logistics solutions. In addition, he works with customers to understand requirements and drive best practices in the digital journey.

Prior to joining Blue Yonder, Terence was the leader in product marketing and value engineering at One Network. Previously, he was in leadership positions in industry management at Savi Technology and solutions and management consulting at i2 and Deloitte Consulting respectively. Terence holds an MBA from the University of Texas, Austin and an Electrical Engineering degree at MIT.

Predictability in a Time of Uncertainty: Machine Learning in Logistics

Business Intelligence | By Derek Gittoes • 01/21/2021

Many organizations faced the most disruptive year in their history as they dealt with the consequences of the pandemic. Large swings in supply and demand for different product categories and changes in distribution patterns left logistics managers grappling with the biggest challenge of their careers. Challenges that were made all the more difficult by one of the most basic yet complex questions in logistics, “How long will it take to get there?”

Accurate transit time predictions have become more crucial than ever given customer demands and expectations, the cost impacts of late shipments, and dynamic nature of today’s supply chains. Machine learning (ML) techniques can be applied to provide more accurate transit information and estimated arrival times (ETAs) by analyzing the historical shipment data in your transportation management systems. Moreover, these ML-based transit time predictions can feed into shipment planning and execution processes to provide better decision-making that ultimately yields better customer service and cost performance.

How machine learning is transforming logistics

Shippers and logistics service providers are faced with multiple challenges when trying to determine accurate shipment transit time estimates. They need to consider the complexities of each transportation mode, diverse geography of each region and route, and different operating behaviors of each service provider, along with other external factors such as unpredicted traffic, weather, and other disruptions that can occur in the transportation process. ML looks into historical data (for example, transit time statistics of carriers) and data from impactful external factors (such as port congestion, weather or holidays) and uses this information to develop more accurate transit time estimates. The model learns continuously and can adapt to changing conditions in the network.

Predict transit times with more accuracy: Machine learning can predict end-to-end transit time despite the complexity of the logistics process, with shipments passing through multiple transportation legs that may include multiple carriers, various modes of transport, and across different countries and regions.
Take events into consideration: Machine learning uses historical trends and events that can impact transit times, and use this information to provide predictions. These can include traffic conditions, port congestion, storms, and holiday closures.
Incorporate changing business conditions: Machine learning can automatically account for changing business conditions, including new ship-to locations and changes in service provider’s performance level.
Produce customized results: Shippers can create models specific to their business scenarios (mode, geography, business unit, etc), identify influential factors and fine tune each model for accuracy and performance.

How machine learning benefits your logistics network

Increased lead time accuracy reduces risks involved in transportation and logistics, improving your overall supply chain. It allows shippers to reduce their operating costs, optimize capital, allocate resources more efficiently, and can lead to higher customer satisfaction, increased revenues, and even improve their competitive advantage.

Make better transportation plans: Shippers and logistics service providers can use machine learning to enable better decision-making and to alleviate exceptions. For example, improved transportation lead time predictions enables more informed decisions on which carrier, route and service level to use for any given order.
Keep customers happy: Shippers and logistics service providers are able to provide better ETA predictions to end customers, alert them of any potential delays, and take actionable measures for projected service failures. It can minimize the number of actual delayed shipments by making better planning decisions upfront before the orders are shipped
Lower inventory costs: Increasing the accuracy of transportation lead times will reduce safety stock levels and warehousing costs by eliminating unnecessary inventory that’s used as a hedge against transportation uncertainty. This is crucial especially for expensive goods, products with a short shelf life, and items that are dependent on seasonal demands.
Reduce supply chain risk: Lower unplanned delays means less need for expedited shipments and associated extra freight costs. Companies are able to allocate resources more efficiently.

The pandemic remains present and its effects will continue to affect the way supply chains work, but the one thing that won’t change will be the importance of accurately predicting transportation lead times. Customers will continue to be more demanding and disruptions from competitors and technology innovation will drive expectations even higher. Leveraging machine learning will not just improve your ability to predict more accurate shipment times, but also reduces potential risks that may make or break a shipper’s bottom line.

Derek H. Gittoes is vice president for supply chain management product strategy and leads the team responsible for Oracle’s portfolio of cloud products for logistics and order management. Derek has 27 years of experience in supply chain software. Prior to joining Oracle, he was vice president of product solutions at G-Log, where he was responsible for product marketing. Derek was also a founder and managing director of Transport Dynamics, a company that specialized in the development of optimization software for transportation companies.

Tech Integration Keeps Shippers in Step with Customers

Business Intelligence | By Ken Fleming • 10/08/2020

The exponential growth of e-commerce in 2020 has brought peak-like levels of order volume for many retailers since as early as March. Looking to the quickly approaching actual peak season, volumes are predicted to hit unprecedented levels, and carriers have been warning shippers for months to expect capacity crunches, increased surcharges/fees and other challenges.

Shippers must overcome these challenges without sacrificing customer service, competitive pricing or margins to be successful and satisfy consumers, who still expect free shipping, fast delivery and full transparency. For many, that means getting more agile by expanding fulfillment and customer service capabilities so they can prepare in different ways, better manage partners and contain rising costs without sacrificing performance. How quickly and easily this can be achieved depends largely on how well a shipper’s mission-critical fulfillment technologies have been integrated to work cooperatively.

Preparedness Varies Greatly

Shippers using standalone systems in their supply chains, warehouses and fulfillment efforts will encounter more challenges than their autonomous warehouse and omnichannel competitors. Without connected systems working as one, shippers inevitably incur more costs and need more manual labor to fulfill orders. Lacking the inventory visibility and other controls afforded by integrated systems, these shippers cannot deliver the same level of customer service as their high-functioning and more agile competitors.

On the other end of the spectrum, fully-integrated technologies make it possible for shippers to provide inventory visibility and controls throughout the organization and quickly augment their capabilities with specialty software. Totally autonomous shippers offer a great example of the power of fully-integrated technologies. Often referred to as lights-out (Europe) or black-box (U.S.) fulfillment, these merchants require little or no human involvement to deliver hundreds of thousands of parcels daily from a single distribution center. Omnichannel retailers also make great use of fully-integrated technologies by deploying ship-from-store, buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) and other innovative fulfillment strategies.

In each of these examples, merchants rely on a designated system of record functioning as a central nervous system that unites otherwise disparate technologies and shares critical information throughout the organization. With this type of system in place, merchants enjoy big advantages when needs change and new challenges arise. They need not adjust operational processes and resources; instead, they can quickly add new specialty software solutions and technologies to address new requirements.

Easy Tech Integration with Containerization

While different types of technologies can serve as a system of record, each merchant must choose the one that makes the most sense based on its own unique needs, and these systems increasingly embrace containerization to make it easy for shippers to augment their capabilities by quickly adding specialty cloud-based software. Warehouse management systems (WMS), order management systems (OMS) and other types of technologies most commonly designated as a merchant’s “system of record” increasingly come ready to integrate with specialty software to support a wide range of fulfillment capabilities, including:

Fleet monitoring
Counting inventory
Monitoring supply chain workflow
Category management
Merchandise operations
Managing locations
Multi-carrier rate shopping
Parcel shipping
Fulfillment tracking

Consider Interoperability

Whether a shipper already has a system of record in place or needs to work toward this goal, they should keep two considerations top of mind:

The interoperability of all mission-critical technologies
The fundamental requirement of transactional data exchange

Shippers with a system of record already in place can quickly augment fulfillment, customer service and other critical capabilities with specialty software, but they should ensure compatibility with their existing system of record whenever possible. Fully autonomous, omnichannel and other merchants with an integrated system of record can keep fulfillment efforts on track without missing a beat as they add specialty software to expand capabilities so long as they ensure interoperability. When maintaining a unified fulfillment operation, ensuring the compatibility of specialty cloud-based software being added saves money and, more importantly with peak season looming, time.

Merchants not yet leveraging a system of record that fully integrates with a wide range of specialty software have a lot to gain by putting the right system of record in place to unify disparate technologies and software to ensure a cohesive and orderly overall approach to order fulfillment and customer service, but the right system of record varies. To select the best system of record to meet its unique needs, each business should weigh the value and consider the pros and cons of all viable options. They can start by answering three questions:

Which option will best mesh with mission-critical specialty software already in use by the organization?
Do restrictions or requirements of ownership or parent companies limit the available options?
How many manual integrations will each potential system of record require to work with all mission-critical specialty software, and what data exchange processes are supported?

Any systems not yet supporting transactional data exchange and still relying on batch data exchange should be eliminated from consideration. Even if they can be leveraged to fully automate a warehouse, systems that rely on batch data sharing leave many benefits unrealized. Insisting on the ability to exchange transactional data in real-time across the organization via fully-integrated systems provides merchants with a wealth of benefits that reach well beyond the warehouse.

Beyond the Warehouse: Other Benefits of Integration

When organizations insist on near-real-time transactional data exchange, they unlock next-level benefits that extend far beyond an automated warehouse. Customer service, financial and inventory management initiatives can all benefit greatly by accessing these integrated systems.

Integrated systems and transactional data allow organizations to deliver superior customer service with less manual intervention and cost. On the self-service front, customers can help themselves to real-time order status updates. When customers contact customer service teams, they too will be better cared for, because customer service teams can access the same real-time information repositories on behalf of customers and offer greater problem resolution strategies.

When payments and other financial details tied to a customer or their orders are available to those with a need to know throughout the organization, this too improves customer service, but financial initiatives and departments also benefit directly from these integrated systems exchanging real-time transactional data. Integrating all mission-critical software that houses financial data into a unified system of record protects cost data, for example, and this can be a huge benefit for shippers sending even thousands of orders/day, let alone hundreds of thousands.

Consider the costs associated with losing financial data tied to just 10,000 shipments. This necessitates a lot of manual work and human intervention. A specialized solution like a transportation management system (TMS) for parcel shipping, when integrated with a WMS, OMS or other system of record, can solve this problem and save thousands of labor hours by mapping all deliveries back to cost center codes, accounting codes, carrier reference data and more if all systems are integrated and sharing data with each other in real time.

Inventory management also benefits from integration and real-time data exchange. Without integration, most of an organization lacks inventory visibility and cannot see what is housed where. This makes it impossible to implement an omnichannel strategy and places customers out of reach. With proper integration and real-time data exchange, merchants can better serve customers with ship-from-store, BOPIS, in-store returns and other omnichannel fulfillment offerings.

Extend Standards throughout the Organization

Merchants should be sure to coordinate technology implementations throughout the entire organization. Whether at use in stores, the warehouse or other distribution centers, shared technology implementation standards reduce chaos and errors and make the many benefits of an integrated system of record possible. Organizations should coordinate with their procurement and purchasing departments to put approval processes in place to help control technology adoption and meet all standards throughout the entire organization.

Totally autonomous shippers, omnichannel retailers and other shippers with a unified system of record can quickly and efficiently augment their fulfillment capabilities with modern specialty cloud-based software to meet rising customer demands and boost profitability. Making careful choices; insisting on real-time information exchange; and requiring reliable, practical, organization-wide standards will simplify the effort and greatly increase the odds of not only automating fulfillment but delivering a wide range of organizational benefits that help merchants meet and exceed customer expectations.

Ken Fleming is president of Logistyx Technologies, the leader in Transportation Management for parcel shipping. Since the mid-1990s, Ken has led successful launches of many new technologies and services, including supply chain management, e-commerce, SaaS, and enterprise software and systems integration solutions. Ken can be reached at ken.fleming@logistyx.com.

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