Automation allows you to gain advantage over competitors – helps plan the schedule of deliveries better, compared to the companies using notes, e-mails or spreadsheets. Every logistician should read this article and learn how their work can look thanks to some modern tools.
Tedious manual processes such as calculations, map checking, comparing or searching for contacts take far too much of the logistician’s time. Modern producers work differently. Thanks to the digital tools, they are able to automate repetitive and simple actions.
Manual calculation of transport costs is a past
A large number of logisticians may agree that most of their working time is devoted to the manual calculation of transport costs. Many of them still use spreadsheets (e.g. Excel) to perform these operations. Such a way of working is no longer effective, especially in the case of a goods distribution model, which assumes multiple unloading points.
Digital tools optimise the logistician’s work
In such situations modern tools and technology called Logistics 4.0 come with help. The Trans.eu Platform, which is used by manufacturers who have set themselves the goal of minimizing tedious processes, is a good example.
These companies calculate their transport costs using special reports, which perform complex calculations automatically for logisticians within just a few seconds. They take the most important parameters into account, including capacity, distance from the target location, weight and volume of a load, as well as weight of a specific type of goods, e.g. various types of ceramics may have different weight and a pallet may accommodate different numbers of them.
The logistician saves a lot of time as all these parameters do not have to be entered manually in the spreadsheet. He doesn’t even need to check and compare routes on the map. Everything is done automatically.
Work on the spot market can be much faster
Operating on the spot market and using the transport exchange is also associated with many manual activities, which one has to spend a lot of time on. They include manual copying of the same information, e.g. from your ERP class software to the transport exchange, as well as e-mails or text messages – it happens that these channels are also used to send offers to transport companies.
The Trans.eu Platform also works great in such situations. It is designed in a way that allows integration with other applications (the so-called API interface), e.g. with TMS or ERP which are mainly used by manufacturers and forwarders. Thus, the manufacturer can fetch and send offers to carriers automatically. The whole process will only take a few seconds.
Additionally, after opening an offer window, you can view the following:
- place and time of loading and unloading
- map of the route
- vehicle data
- carrier’s details (scans of documents, ratings, contact data)
Automatic selection of carriers also within the contract
In almost every company – whether it is a forwarder or manufacturer – the logistician’s work focuses on the manual selection of the carrier who will complete an order. Even if he has several subcontractors for a given route, he must eventually choose one and approve. This system of working is slowly becoming a thing of the past.
Forwarders using the modern digital tools, such as the Trans.eu Platform, do not need to waste time on manual searching of carriers. More and more often they use the contractors module, in which they have their own groups of trusted carriers. They can also search by route or SmartMatch, an algorithm which considers such parameters as: searched and clicked offers, fleet, ratings, certificates and matches companies from the Trans.eu exchange to the shipper.
On the Platform it is also possible to set automatic rules – it is the best way to find carriers without much effort. The rules let you decide who will receive freight proposals from you and in what order. Read more about this functionality in our HelpCenter.
