TMS Supply Chain: discover how connectivity can revolutionise your logistics

As the manager of a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME), you are aware of the dual importance of delivery in terms of your company’s competitiveness and end customer satisfaction. To optimise delivery, your entire supply chain needs to meet the challenges of the supply chain, demand variability and environmental requirements.

To meet these challenges, you need better connectivity between logistics players (carriers, suppliers, distributors and customers).

Equipped with EDI technology to ensure this collaboration, the Supply Chain TMS software offered by DDS through its TMS Free package will revolutionise your logistics. Let’s find out how.

Small businesses: the need for connectivity in your supply chain

Small and medium-sized businesses face a number of challenges if they are to remain competitive.

At the heart of these challenges generally lies the issue of deliveries. The delivery issue is twofold, since it concerns :

• the delivery of raw materials or semi-finished products from suppliers
• and the delivery of products sold by the VSE/SME to its customers.

Connectivity with suppliers

As far as suppliers are concerned, the company wants to be delivered on time according to :

• production requirements or customer orders,
• its chosen flow management (pull, just-in-time, push or synchronous flow).

In this context, real-time monitoring of supplies is essential.

Communication between the two components must therefore be efficient, accurate and always in real time. To achieve this, you need to introduce the essential concept of connectivity between your company and your suppliers.

Connectivity with customers

Customers increasingly want to know the status of their order and the position of their parcel in real time.

Having this information in real time drastically increases customer satisfaction.

This makes them feel valued, and they appreciate being kept informed by text message or email of every stage in the life of their order. This need for connectivity requires an automated system that links the different stages of your supply chain and the sending of messages (sms, email, etc.).

VSE/SME: what are the tools for connectivity with your suppliers?

To optimise its management of physical and information flows, a VSE/SME needs to maintain transparent and effective communication with its suppliers.

The use of technologies such as EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) to automate orders and invoices, or supply chain management platforms to track and manage stocks, is generally necessary to make exchanges more fluid.

There are several tools on the market that can help VSEs/SMEs improve their connectivity with their suppliers, including

• supplier supply platforms,
• EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) solutions,
• tracking and tracing solutions,
• stock management solutions,
• or integration with your supply chain’s flow and transport management system.

By improving their connectivity with suppliers using one of these tools, companies will boost the efficiency of their supply chain.

Customer communications: what connectivity solutions are available?

As far as customers are concerned, there are several connectivity tools available to keep them informed of the status of their order and delivery.

These tools can be unidirectional (the company informs the customer) or bidirectional (the company informs the customer and the customer questions the company):

• automatic notifications by e-mail or SMS,
• customer portals,
• delivery tracking solutions integrated into the supply chain and the shipping chain,
• chatbots,
• social networks.

The direct effect of these connectivity tools is to strengthen customer confidence and improve their overall satisfaction. An informed customer is a happy customer!

Supply Chain TMS: a connectivity tool to strengthen collaboration between suppliers, the company and customers

When it comes to this need for collaboration, Excel spreadsheet management quickly becomes unsuitable.

On the other hand, there is a software tool that ticks all the boxes for successful connectivity with your partners and customers, even in the case of small and medium-sized businesses!

This is the TMS, where exchanges are carried out in real time using EDI.

Are you familiar with the terms TMS and EDI?

TMS: what is this transport management software?

The Transport Management System (TMS) is software used in logistics to manage and optimise all goods transport operations.

The automation of transport-related processes, from planning to invoicing, represents a major technological advance that fits perfectly into the supply chain of a VSE / SME / SMI.

The TMS provides real-time visibility of the entire supply chain, enabling you to :

• plan deliveries and supplies,
• optimise transport routes
• reduce delivery times,
• track shipments,
• control costs,
• inform customers in real time of the status of their order
• improve customer satisfaction,
• guarantee regulatory compliance (CO2 emissions, etc.).

EDI: definition for managing your supply chain

According to INSEE, EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is a technique that replaces physical exchanges of documents between companies with computerised exchanges in a standardised format.

As part of the supply chain, this standardised exchange system makes it possible to connect the various players in the supply chain: it replaces the exchange of paper documents (orders, invoices, dispatch notes, delivery notes, etc.) with automated electronic exchanges.

This makes communication and collaboration between companies, suppliers and customers simpler and more efficient!

EDI facilitates the exchange of information and reduces manual input errors. Its use improves the efficiency and responsiveness of the supply chain for companies, whether small, medium-sized or large.

Implement a TMS in your supply chain to strengthen collaboration between suppliers, companies and customers

Thanks to complete visibility of transport operations via its common platform, usually in the cloud, TMS software ensures effective collaboration between all the players in the supply chain.

Implementing it in your supply chain is a proactive, strategic and competitive guarantee.

For suppliers, the TMS provides visibility of orders and deliveries.

Planning becomes more accurate, making stock management more proactive. Suppliers, like the company’s various departments, can monitor the status of their deliveries in the supply chain in real time. Being informed in this way of any delays or changes to schedules is beneficial to them in managing their production and their own logistics as effectively as possible.

Good news for your SME: your supplier will be able to respond more quickly to your customer requests.

For companies, the TMS enables you to control costs and improve profitability.

By selecting the carriers best suited to your cost, lead time, quality and environmental criteria. What’s more, centralising all the management of transport operations saves your employees a considerable amount of time, while reducing the risk of errors (data entry, etc.).

For customers, real-time transparency on the status of their order and delivery is a huge advantage: customer experience and satisfaction guaranteed! Customers are informed in real time of the status of their order and the date/time of delivery. This well-planned receipt of goods (they are warned in the event of delays or problems) is the satisfaction lever they expect.

Managers of very small businesses, take advantage of DDS’s TMS offer, which is 100% free of charge and with no obligation. Our solution is free and quick to integrate into your supply chain.