The world goes round and round, and within – it’s the continuous logistics movement that keeps things running. Everything from a banana or a chip, or banana chips gets marked and scanned as they move from one region to another, and finally through the last mile distribution into our hands (so to speak). We just experience the timeliness and the quality of the delivery and product. We use this to judge (and rate) the company, the logistics partner, and even the essence of the product itself.
The consumer can only judge through their experience. Companies know this, and toil to create impeccable experiences with faster and better deliveries.
Peeling the logistics onion further, we discover that instituting and sustaining speedy and effective deliveries isn’t easy. There’s an entire supply chain that needs to work in the same beat to make it happen. The history of the banana chips is tracked through their journey from the factory to the eventual stores. The last mile van picks them up from a distribution center to the destined delivery point, going through their route and stopping along their milk run for other equally important deliveries.
One step deeper, the trailers or trucks haul the shipment from factories to the distribution centers. Sometimes it takes different trailers moving through intermediary centers or even effecting the start of the glorious multi-modal logistics journey.
All-in-all, logistics planning and execution across multiple domains, stakeholders, regions, warehouses, trailers, and people – compound to make those few moments of consumer experience truly memorable.
Ensuring a robust, streamlined, controlled, tracked, manageable, replicable, and scalable logistics management process – isn’t just a need – it’s the whole core of creating end-consumer value. Delayed or erroneous deliveries may end up eroding the millions in advertising the charming product. You can’t look away from this.
Logistics management software | The gist of what it can do to streamline logistics
You need to know exactly what product, in which batch has been set up through the purchase order to move out of the warehouse – at what time and bound for which location – all through one simple and intuitive screen. It should be at your fingertips.
An effective logistics management software makes this happen. You have full visibility of the available stock and the resources (like vehicles and drivers required for delivery fulfillment). You can easily pull info from the master database to auto-fill your orders (also known as lorry receipts – LR – in some quarters).
The system aligns the order with the preset structures and tolerances of your in-built rate and contract management process. This process is pre-learned on all client and branch info with exact details of rates for each contracted product.
The idea is to make the ‘through’ processing of orders or LRs streamlined enough to be done by anyone and from any medium like a laptop or mobile device. It’s just a few steps – and you’re done.
Trip or Runsheet creation | Real-time tracking | Electronic proof of delivery | Invoice automation
The orders can be assigned to a trip (or Runsheet) in a few clicks. This trip or Runsheet is what is associated with the drivers/trailers. The system can auto-assign the driver and vehicle as per the capacity and location requirements of the trip.
This further streamlines the dispatch process – once the checkpoints of documentation are complete. The system helps with easy updating of regulatory documents like e-way bills so all the validations are seen and processed in one go.
Once dispatched, the managers can track the exact movement in real-time. They can get timely notifications of delivery status updates, as they happen. The driver, on unloading and scanning out the packages, snaps the electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) with their mobile device. This has the time and location stamp along with the visual delivery confirmation – whether partial or full.
This validated delivery confirmation helps automate the invoicing. As it has the proofs attached, the clearances are quick with minimal claims. The entire process is further simplified by automated invoice generation and posting (for approvals).
End-to-end visibility and control for logistics management
The process is only as good as its usage. Customers (the ones with the factories) can access their customer portal to directly set up orders. The logistics service providers or warehouses can pull in the orders, automatically within the system, and set up the order creation process with high-priority notifications to stakeholders. The customers can track the order status and shipment movement through their customer portal – including the final delivery validation with the ePOD.
The managers with the service provider or carrier can also track the entire order creation and delivery process from their user-specific dashboards. The entire system enables end-to-end visibility and control over aspects of the process.
The reporting and analytics are the enhancement levels that help you quickly find caveats in your operations and optimize them accordingly. This turns the system into a pseudo-self-learning entity that gets better with regular iterations. When done right, the logistics management software can not just enhance the final consumer experience, but make it profound enough to merit consumer loyalty.
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This is just a very quick overview of logistics management software. We know the extent of the possibilities as we have been enabling this for multiple customers – with proven results.
Do you want to talk about this and see if this is something you wish to unlock? Just drop in here and we will have a quick chat.