Most people nowadays have turned to online shopping to buy everything from groceries and home necessities to fashion apparel and even food items. It has become the norm to order an item online and expect it to arrive the same day (especially for food orders) or within 1–2 days. Any slower than is considered poor service. That said, if your business is offering delivery services, you need to make sure that everything in your supply chain is functioning properly. A minor oversight can cause potentially disastrous outcomes for your entire operations. One of the best ways to void constant errors in your logistics and delivery services is to implement a transport management system.
A transport management system or TMS is a technology platform that allows you to manage your logistics operations.
It helps in the proper planning and monitoring of the physical movement of your products and goods— both outgoing and incoming— and ensures proper shipment order and documentation.
The transport management system is only a subcategory of a much broader supply chain system. In general, it serves as a bridge that connects interactions between your warehouse systems and enterprise management system. It also functions as the primary hub for transportation operations and organizing logistical needs for a business or delivery carrier.
Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of a TMS is that it can help reduce your freight cost. A reliable system can help provide these savings via optimization and analytics. Often features a route planning software, TMS helps in analyzing the cost efficiency of different logistic routes. It can calculate the best path for freight transportation— from loading to delivery— in terms of fuel cost, driver overtime, and speed.
In addition, reliable TMS can also help you standardize shipment payment terms. With a centralized billing feature, the system allows you to audit payments and billings. This makes managing your business budget better and allows you to anticipate cash flow within your business.
Today, customers don’t just want fast delivery, customization, reliable tracking details, and damage-free packages— they expect it.
It’s a challenge for businesses to match customer expectations without adapting their operations. This is where a reliable TMS comes in.
A high-quality TMS will provide the necessary tool that allows your customers to know when their order is shipped and provide product tracking information. Allowing customers to monitor this information can increase their satisfaction.
In addition, a good TMS allows you to review the cost-efficiency of your delivery carrier services as well as the frequency of timely and efficient delivery. Monitoring this information helps you choose the most efficient and reliable carriers for your products.
In terms of improving warehouse productivity, a TMS can help. With the constant flow of outgoing and incoming inventory, a well-organized and managed warehouse is critical to logistics success.
Pairing your TMS software with your warehouse management system allows you to create a record of orders and effectively track where they’re located in the warehouse as well as when they’re in transit or delivered.
In addition, a reliable TMS can also help improve both warehouse and freight accuracy. A TMS reduces the challenges of manual data entry with advanced features and tools. For instance, a TMS can validate customer addresses before products are shipped.
The improved accuracy and less error can save your company time, money, and resources, boosting warehouse and freight productivity as well as reducing frustrated customers.
Transparency is critical in a busy supply chain and is made possible with a reliable TMS solution. With a TMS platform, you can access and compile data for easier management of your supply chain. You don’t have to search through old emails for order or product details or flip through paper copies to look for bills you need to review.
With a TMS, you have to find the information right from your fingertips. Hence, pulling reports and data and streamlining processes has never been easier.
It also provides insights into all other integrated systems. Thus, logistic managers can identify and act on possible difficulties more effectively and promptly, ensuring a seamless and efficient operation.
And there you have it!
Logistics relies heavily on delivering a product to the right customer in the most efficient way and earliest time possible. Having the best transport management system can help provide just that streamlining operations and costs while ensuring customer satisfaction. Ultimately, this helps improve your revenue and push your business towards growth and success.
