Visibility and Control Solutions for Transport Carriers and Logistics Providers such as Freight Forwarders, 3PLs and NVOCCs
Transport carriers and logistics providers require real-time, in-depth logistics visibility across their global supply chain networks. Freightgate’s Visibility and Control Solutions provide multi-modal supply chain visibility helping logistics providers with decision-making technology for their scheduling, routing and capacity control, along with connecting importers and exporters to shipment booking and tracking capabilities.
What is Logistics Visibility?
The word “visibility” is ubiquitous in today’s supply chain discussions and literature. The recent buzz over RFID technology is, in a large part, about visibility. Before that it was barcodes. But what does it mean to have visibility? What are enterprises watching so closely? What is gained through enhanced or even total visibility?
Freightgate’s I-Trek!® is a powerful logistics visibility solution is designed to sharpen your competitive edge by providing tracking and tracing and event management information along the entire logistics Lifecycle. I-Trek! lets you utilize the Cloud-based Internet to collaborate with your customers and trading partners by sharing vital shipping information. It enables all parties to simultaneously update the status of a shipment or to track a shipment by multiple parameters including Billing Reference, Shipper Reference, Consignee Reference, PO Numbers, Shipment Status, Date Range and much more. By providing a vehicle to incorporate freight costs with inventory carrying costs and other cost components, I-Trek® will give a customer the decision support tools to make landed cost decisions that can have a major impact on bottom line performance.
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End-to-End / Granular Visibility
The demand for logistics visibility has moved beyond just shipment trach and trace to include the entire logistics cycle from order generation through to final disposition of the goods — e.g. sale, consumption or manufacturing — and invoice payment. Enterprises want that visibility down to the most granular level possible — order, sku/part, style, size, lot, serial #, Julian Date, and the list goes on.
Visibility and Control Solutions
An axiom of quality engineering says that, in order to control something, one must first be able to measure it. Armed with the scope and depth of information achieved above, supply chain professionals have what they need to manage processes and control costs in the Logistics Management Lifecycle.
The process of moving goods from arrival port/airport to door is referred to as “last leg management.” Companies with excellent last leg management enjoy competitive advantage in the form of lower demurrage costs, lower dock labor costs, higher product availability, less inventory and better cash to cash cycle. Last leg management is even more hands on and collaborative than PO management. It absolutely requires an Internet native tool to track and update goods flow through the various stages of the process and make that information available to authorized stakeholders. Event driven alerts warn of missing documents, Customs and FDA inspections, missed pick-ups, hot shipments as defined by the consignee, and limitless other statuses.
The net result is that goods arrive according to priority, on schedule, without penalties, at a rate that is optimal for the receiving site.
Purchase order management and last leg management are just two areas of opportunity made possible by total end to end supply chain visibility for logistics providers. Others visibility and control solutions include bid management, network optimization, shipment booking, transport scheduling, invoice auditing, quality assurance, and capacity control.
The bottom line from a macro and practical perspective is that transport carriers and logistics providers are working diligently to drive cost out of their logistics supply chains. One would be hard pressed to find a success case that did not employ improved visibility information — timelier, more accurate, more comprehensive and more granular visibility and control solutions.
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Reduce Overall Supply Chain Costs
- Drive down in-transit inventory and buffer stocks through increased visibility and predictability to the sku level.
- Eliminate demurrage and detention with collaborative last leg management.
- Spur supplier competition on both service and price using real time comparative KPIs.
- Reduce stock outs, production stoppages and warehouse operation costs through dynamic scheduling of inbound goods.
Reduce Administrative Costs
- Centralize supply chain and logistics information on one platform across providers.
- Manage by exception, rather than waste precious hours each day reviewing shipments and orders that are moving as planned.
- Use the Document Management Engine to electronically store and access hard copies of bills, letters of credit, invoices, instructions and other necessary reference documents.
- Give customers and suppliers controlled access to the information they need rather than being mired in phone calls, emails and faxes.
- Generate shipping profiles to inform carrier negotiations and tenders.
Improve Quality and Customer Satisfaction
- Delight your customers with predictable and transparent on-time performance.
- Increase supplier accountability and gain negotiation leverage through periodic KPI analysis and review.
- Identify internal improvement opportunities by facility or business unit.
The Freightgate Team excels at finding innovative solutions to Contract Rate Management Problems for transport carriers, freight forwarders, 3PLs and NVOCCs with our vast arsenal of flexible cloud technology tools — take a logistics cloud demo for contract rate management and experience the difference yourself first hand.
Share with us your toughest Rate Management challenge and allow us to come up with a creative, potentially out of the box solution.
