Collaboration, the future of transportation

It affects the entire supply chain and is essential to its performance, the quality of its deliveries and customer satisfaction. It is “collaboration”. This has become a major issue for all transport operations, from upstream to downstream.

Highlighted by the importance of the health crisis, reinforced by the need to offer end-customers delivery within a short timeframe, at the chosen locations and times, with reliability and real-time visibility, supply chain collaboration is proving to be a determining factor. The success of logistics operations does not depend on a single player but on an ecosystem of multiple partners, including suppliers and carriers whose deliveries are essential. Nevertheless, in these high-stakes activities, there are still problems such as the lack of visibility and alerts in case of delays or the difficulty of planning deliveries to warehouses or stores. In order to meet deadlines and ensure the best quality of service, it is therefore necessary to coordinate exchanges and get all supply chain players to work together. Fortunately, tools exist to do this.

Suppliers, carriers, customers: How to collaborate with your partners?

These tools are dedicated digital solutions. They allow to associate the different partners to the transport process. From order integration to delivery, including planning and selection of partners, chartering, appointment scheduling and shipping, they provide visibility on operations, facilitate cost control and ensure better performance in terms of CO2 and budget. They act on 4 essential links:

– Sharing orders with suppliers
– Making appointments with carriers
– Visibility with customers in particular
– Cost and invoice control with carriers.

Rely on digital transport platforms

Among them, there is a first family of solutions: digital platforms. In addition to their affordable price and ease of implementation, they offer order management, appointment management, visibility and information sharing functions. They focus on process performance. DDS Logistics has also developed its own collaborative transport platform. Called Join2ship, it enables shippers, carriers and consignees to organize the planning, management and real-time monitoring of shipments and receipts of goods, and is also a solution for pooling transport. Thus, by facilitating communication between all these actors, Join2ship contributes to creating a supply chain that is both efficient and collaborative.

TMS software, a digital hub dedicated to transportation

Another family of solutions that is becoming more and more popular is the transport TMS. These powerful management software packages enable a wider scope to be covered, covering the entire transport process. The TMS – for Transport Management System – is a digital hub capable of ensuring optimal operational monitoring of transport planning, chartering and appointment management, load valuation, dock management, delivery traceability, alerts in the event of a problem, and invoicing or litigation files if necessary. At DDS Logistics, the DDS Shipper TMS also provides a real advantage in terms of cost control and CO2 emissions, while helping with strategic decision-making through its reporting functions.

Acting on different levels of the transport supply chain

These digital collaboration tools act at different levels of the transport supply chain. Upstream, they enable the management of international supplies, ensuring the tracing of orders, the monitoring of quantities made available, the sharing of documents and the issuing of alerts in the event of discrepancies.

Optimize receiving and delivery processes

They also have the ability to associate suppliers and carriers with the receiving process through appointment planning; but also with deliveries since the carriers themselves inform of their progress via mobile applications and/or API/EDI. Thus, the shipper is warned in case of delay or when trucks are approaching.

Managing data to reduce CO2 emissions

The last important factor is the management of transport data from end to end of the chain and with it, the ability to calculate the CO2 emissions linked to transport. Thus, the Green Move digital solution allows to manage the detailed data of each shipment (flows, modes and transport contents) on the whole supply chain and the transport modes used.

Transport collaboration: Benefits for all!

These different action levers result in a number of gains. These include safety, productivity, cost and risk reduction, improved customer service and performance measurement. And these benefits materialize whatever the role within the supply chain:

Benefits for shippers:

– Improved customer service through the availability of tracking information, visibility of orders and deliveries.
– Improvement and measurement of delivery performance.
– Productivity and remote working through chartering and pickup planning, digitalization of exchanges and management by exception.
– Reduced transportation costs.

Gains for recipients:

– Control and visibility of logistics with suppliers through a better vision of the orders received
– Reduction of the risk of product shortages
– Productivity gains due to delivery by appointment, reception planning and digitalization of exchanges
– Security: drivers or subcontractors are now known in advance

Gains for carriers:

– EDI exchanges facilitating collaboration with all partners.
– Ease of communication with drivers via the mobile application for transmitting and tracking transport orders.
– Productivity and remote work through the digitalization of exchanges.
– Reduction of waiting time for drivers.

Thus, to reinforce the supply transport, collaboration is more than ever necessary. In an uncertain environment, with ever-increasing needs for agility and responsiveness, information sharing, visibility and exchange are essential to ensure the performance of daily transport operations. Tools such as collaborative platforms and TMS are the best allies to achieve this.

Focus on actions to federate your ecosystem

In order to facilitate the implementation of a collaborative solution within your ecosystem, it is essential, from the very beginning of the project, to involve all your partners: customer, supplier and carrier. During a dedicated day, an information meeting, the provision of the configured application or even online training or a workshop to learn how to use the tool, each actor in the project will be able to understand the interest and benefits of the approach. To do this, it is important to think about adapting the means of information processing to each of them to make them, finally, your ambassadors!