Logistics software: the essential solutions to digitalize your Supply Chain

Faced with globalized and increasingly fierce competition, companies have an essential but too often neglected performance lever: their Supply Chain.

This can be rationalized and optimized to gain in efficiency and time, to save money. And to boost customer satisfaction thanks to an increased quality rate and reduced delivery times. Are you planning to go down this path? To digitize your supply chain, you must first of all acquire a tool adapted to your needs: a logistics software designed to improve your operational efficiency. Discover which digital tools will help you optimize your supply chain.

Logistics software: what are we talking about?

Over time, the supply chain has expanded, diversified and been outsourced. Today, it is made up of different players who are all involved in its smooth operation – suppliers, forwarding agents, carriers, freight forwarders, logisticians, etc. Therefore, the digitalization of logistics processes must necessarily take this reality into account. And it must be able to encompass all these players so that they can walk in unison, facilitating their exchanges and streamlining processes. This is where logistics software comes into play.

This software is a must-have tool for you if you are planning to digitalize your supply chain. In fact, the term “logistics software” covers several tools necessary to manage the different stages of a supply chain. In particular, a warehouse operational management solution and a goods transportation management software.

What are the advantages of a logistics management software?

By helping you to digitalize your Supply Chain, the logistics software allows you to :

• optimize your processes,
• to improve your lead times,
• and relieve you of time-consuming actions that distract your operators from the essential.

In concrete terms, digitizing your Supply Chain with a logistics software will allow you to…

• make exchanges between the players in your supply chain more fluid. No matter how far apart they are;
• collect crucial information about your goods flows. For example, receive alerts in case of hazards, and thus make coherent strategic decisions;
• plan your transport operations and anticipate your stock requirements (supply management, order preparation, improved transport conditions, etc.);
• reduce your logistics costs, in particular by better choosing your transport operators, reducing your delivery times and rationalizing your warehouse storage;
• increase your productivity by allocating your resources to higher value-added tasks, such as customer relations, in particular through automation.

More globally, the use of a logistics software to digitalize your Supply Chain leads you to simplify the management of each link of the chain, to supervise it more efficiently, and to make relevant strategic decisions. And with positive consequences on both your performance and your customers’ satisfaction. This will give you a competitive advantage and strengthen your brand image.

Which logistics software to digitalize your Supply Chain?

You will have understood: digitizing your Supply Chain represents a major step forward in the optimization of your logistics processes. However, as mentioned above, there is no “one” logistics software, but “several” tools adapted to some of your needs. Which one should you choose? There are two main families of software solutions: WMS and TMS.

The WMS software to manage your stock efficiently

The WMS logistics software is a warehouse management system (this is the meaning of the acronym WMS: Warehouse Management System). This tool allows you to digitalize your Supply Chain in all its aspects dedicated to the storage of goods in the warehouse. It aims to optimize all processes related to this issue:

• product reception,
• storage in the warehouse,
• order preparation,
• management of goods shipments.

The objective? To fully control its stocks to ensure the traceability of packages. To ensure that you can respond favorably to requests in all circumstances (by anticipating busier periods or supply problems). And to manage its storage surface more efficiently (which allows to reduce the space needed, and thus to make savings).

To digitalize your Supply Chain, a WMS software must include a minimum of functionalities such as

• management of incoming flows to warehouses and stocks
• preparation of orders and shipments
• control of flows;
• reports on warehouse management and operations;
• etc.

TMS software to optimize your transport management

The TMS logistics software is a tool for optimizing goods transportation operations (Transport Management System). It is an essential solution for digitizing your supply chain insofar as it allows you to automate recurring processes and greatly improve the management of deliveries and the monitoring of transport flows – especially if your supply chain is dispersed.

Thanks to this type of software, your entire logistics management process benefits, from the implementation of delivery schedules to the issuing of invoices, including the optimization of the routes taken by carriers. You can obtain valuable information about the performance of your transport chain (shipment times, vehicle fill rates, travel times, etc.), and use this information as a lever for improvement.

Here again, your TMS software must offer essential features such as:

• planning of deliveries,
• the elaboration of transport plans and optimization of rounds,
• real-time traceability of transport flows,
• data feedback related to incidents and disputes in an ad hoc
• dashboard,
• the follow-up of invoicing operations,
• reporting,
• the process analysis module,
• etc.

Which logistics management software should you choose to digitalize your supply chain?

The best way to make a choice is not to choose! To digitalize your Supply Chain as efficiently as possible, the ideal solution is to implement both a TMS and a WMS tool. The joint use of these two levers will guarantee a perfect integration of all your processes, from product manufacturing to delivery to the store or to the end customer.

Ask DDS Logistics, the leader in logistics software, for advice on how to digitalize your supply chain in the best possible way!