1ShiftLogistics – Supply Chain Visibility & Automation

Supply Chain Visibility & Automation

About the
project

Client 1ShiftLogistics

The Problem

For many years, transportation has struggled with a lack of proper visibility of loads once they left the brand owner’s or service provider’s warehouse. Commercial customers and consumers continue to have increasing demands around real-time visibility to their orders and shipments.
This is driven by the “Amazon effect” and is valid for any organization, regardless of size, geography or industry. It is applicable across all regions with North America and Europe leading the adoption.
These solutions began being predominantly focused on domestic road requirements. Visibility is a core part of logistics and transportation technology and plays a complementary function to transportation management, warehouse management, yard management and fleet management.
Key features of Real-time transportation visibility platforms (RTTVPs) combine a strong carrier network with real-time tracking of shipments, analytics and reporting as well as integration to core business systems. They provide a multitude of benefits in the areas of customer service, carrier management and transportation processes, enabling higher service levels and/or order fulfilment rates and efficiency gains for all (e.g., brand owners, logistic service providers and carriers). These solutions provide the parties with location and condition monitoring and provide capabilities such as: Real-time tracking, Status updates, Exception management, ETA calculation, Analytics and reporting Business system integration

Insights

To get a better insight into the industry, we decided to speak to and send out a survey to all small, medium and large operators.

Q: What are your most important, supply chain initiatives for 2019?

Here are the results

Overall challenges and trends that the transportation market experiences include:

Increased demand into real-time insights of orders and shipments to overcome internal and external inefficiencies.
Insights requested from all stakeholders involved in supply chain operations, independent of type, size and geography.

Shortage of transportation capacity or difficulties securing that capacity. Decreased tender acceptance rates from contracted carriers.
Aside from solution providers, logistic service providers are also developing their own visibility tools and marketing them as differentiating capabilities.
Technology solutions being positioned as competitive differentiators.
The growing last-mile delivery market is impacting the need for better visibility. Continued investment from private equity into this area bringing new vendors to the market and allowing existing vendors to expand their footprints.

In addressing those trends, solution providers are enhancing their offerings through:

Moving from domestic road transportation insights into multimode insights along the extended value chain.
Expanding regional coverage (one region to multiregion)
Partnering with other types of networks for enhanced data capture (aka “network of networks”) Multichannel integration to allow any format or method. Partnerships with planning and executional transportation systems and fleet management systems (e.g., TMS, VRS, YMS)
Expansion of capabilities into predictive capacity solutions, dynamic appointment scheduling.

Visibility/traceability across the end-to-end supply chain 35%

Sales and operations planning/integrated business planning process 33%

Business intelligence and analytics to enhance decision making 31%

Inventory/asset optimization 30%

Supply chain/network redesign 27%

Supplier collaboration and service 25%

Customer collaboration and service 25%

New SCM application or technology investments 21%

Recruiting, training and talent management programs 15%

Strategically outsource to third party 14%

Build new conventional warehouse(s), plant(s) or factories 10%

Prototype/deploy emerging technologies 8%