There is no debating how helpful a transportation management system can be to your business. The additional reporting, analytics, and communication from a TMS alone is enough to benefit your business. A TMSs most significant benefit, however, is how much it can lower your transportation costs.
How does it do this? Here are some ways a TMS helps a shipper’s pursuit of lower transportation costs:
Reducing Shipping and Administrative Costs
A state-of-the-art TMS provides insight and analysis into where expenses can be cut. It can bring all related costs, contracts, carriers, and other shipping options into one place. Many times, a customer can organize important data into easily accessible portals.
Additionally, you can compare carrier rates and negotiate a better deal.
What all this does is give you and your company clear visibility into where your money is going. You will be able to see if you are overspending and where money can be saved.
Ship More Efficiently
A supply chain is far more complicated than picking a carrier, loading a truck, and shipping your freight. Carrier selection, load optimization, executing the shipment, and managing claims is a big job. It is a big job made much easier with a TMS.
A high-quality TMS system should come with access to a customer tracking portal. This will give you visibility into your product flow and show you all the tracking updates on a map. You will see the location of your shipment and get updates on it.
A TMS also gives additional supply chain visibility to your customers. You can keep them posted on the shipment’s flow by sending instant notifications and updates generated through the TMS. It will represent you as a reliable shipper that prioritizes clients’ needs and shares control over the shipment.
Supply Chain Execution
A state-of-the-art TMS can help you with the following:
- Receiving freight settlement, invoicing, and payments
- Booking freight with carriers and digitally tendering loads
- Manage, organize, and share freight documentation.
- Track shipments and receive real-time updates, including carrier performance evaluations.
- Electronic filings for customs declarations, security filings, and export documentation
If your business utilizes a more extensive carrier network, a TMS may be able to integrate its systems into your own. With this, you can automatically pull relevant data immediately rather than navigate several other portals. You want to have that tracking information as quickly as possible, so having it in one location increases efficiency.
Optimization
In logistics, conditions can change rapidly, causing supply chain breakdowns. Optimizing your business using a TMS can help take your business to the next level.
A TMS should be able to take in all the changing conditions and communicate with you, your carriers, and your customers. Transportation management systems today should be able to update routes in real-time. You need to know if there are any issues along the route, from traffic to warehouse and truck capacity issues. Not knowing this information can cost you significant money and damage customer relationships.
You also never know when you will need to change your business structure or overhaul your supply chain. Your TMS must be able to keep up and evolve.
Data analysis
It’s easy to measure your company’s KPIs with a TMS. A transportation management system gives you access to financial reporting based on your BOL information and provides consolidated billing. Through data analysis, you can track and measure your key performance indicators:
- Simple, configurable charts and graphs
- On-time performance
- Lane Analysis
- Volume trends
- Cost per mile
- Cost per Ton
- Financial reporting
- Trend analysis
- Visibility into the supply chain regardless of stage and location
Custom solutions
PLS Logistics Services commits to giving customers everything they need to be successful through our advanced technology. With more than 30 years of experience in the transportation and logistics industry, we fully understand all the major challenges customers face when trying to improve their performance.
With our in-house transportation management system, PLS PRO, we provide proprietary management, data storage, and reporting. Our technology easily adjusts to your transportation needs, regardless of the complexity. Most importantly, it helps you and your business succeed in ways to lower your transportation costs.
Request a free demo today!
