As shippers struggle to contend with the increased traffic around the Chinese New Year, many are looking to improve operational efficiency. Eliminating manual check calls through collaborative transportation management systems can help shippers improve efficiency during high-volume times by streamlining communication, providing real-time visibility, and optimizing capacity processes. This approach is especially critical when dealing with expedited freight.
Airfreight and just-in-time cargo require collaborative logistics that bring together shippers, freight forwarders, and brokers who share a sense of urgency to ensure capacity is available and that trucks arrive as scheduled to ensure on-time deliveries.
This blog examines how transportation management software helps drive collaboration in logistics, bringing the real-time visibility and actionable insights stakeholders need to move expedited freight efficiently. Integral to that success is having a partner that prioritizes urgency and has an agile team of crisis management experts who can react quickly when notified a shipment is ready for pickup.
Many freight forwarders organize their daily business operations using spreadsheets and outdated transportation management systems that require manual data input for every step in a shipment’s lifecycle. For instance, a typical expedited air shipment requires dozens of internal and external emails and phone calls among the shippers, carriers, and customers. Check calls, tracking updates, and updating statuses by email are tedious and time-consuming processes forwarders traditionally depend on daily.
This manual work can lead to recording errors and leaves most companies with siloed data trapped within bloated email servers and various spreadsheets. The inability to collaborate and communicate with partners in real time puts time-critical shipments at risk for delays—especially during seasonal events that often bring high volumes and low capacity.
To create collaboration and optimize their processes, many companies are embracing the technological turn and incorporating transportation management software that helps forwarders eliminate manual tracking processes and gain better visibility over air freight and just-in-time cargo.
Creating a collaborative supply chain network is essential to reducing mistakes, ensuring expedited air freight gets delivered on time, and making customers happy. Collaboration in logistics technology is crucial for freight forwarders to maintain control, proactively identify issues, and take corrective actions to keep shipments on track for delivery. A collaborative transportation management system (TMS) provides single-touch communication between supply chain parties and end-to-end visibility on critical events and shipment location. This is accomplished through three unique transportation management system capabilities:
Collaborative transportation technology systems streamline communication between shippers, carriers, and forwarders and make it possible to communicate vital shipment information without time-consuming check calls. Many collaborative TMS platforms host integrated communication assets into their software infrastructure, which eliminates data silos among parties and allows seamless information sharing, instantly.
With a collaborative transportation management system, real-time updates and status alerts ensure that freight forwarders have round-the-clock access to vital information. This means that forwarders are quickly made aware of exceptions that threaten just-in-time delivery and support a proactive, rather than reactive, response. Advanced TMS software also allows forwarders and supply chain partners to access a shipment’s geographic location from any smart device at any time. Gone are the days of making endless calls and incessant emails to dispatch to get unreliable driver ETA and location information.
Unexpected supply chain disruptions, like labor shortages and ongoing COVID-19 closures, continuously threaten warehouse operations around the globe, resulting in logistics complications and, invariably, late deliveries. Unfortunately, these excuses simply do not fly for critical just-in-time shipments. With on-demand airfreight capacity through a collaborative transportation technology provider, freight forwarders and shippers can rely on air cargo recovery to ensure reliable operations at chaotic logistics hubs, regardless of disrupted market conditions.
Each day, hundreds of freight forwarders depend on the dedicated solutions provided by Carrier 911. From the moment a customer emails or calls for service until the reception of the POD, Carrier 911’s agile team of crisis management specialists take action with acute attention to detail, proactive communication, and a relentless sense of urgency to ensure airfreight and Just-In-Time cargo gets delivered on time.
Real-time visibility, available courtesy of Turvo’s advanced transportation management system, comes standard with each Carrier 911 shipment. Unlike many truckers that disappear into the black hole of nothingness after pickup is made, Carrier 911 provides complete visibility from end to end of the shipment lifecycle. Proactive communication is at the heart of Carrier 911’s service credo. Notifying a customer when a driver is en route to pick up, at the pickup location, and departing the shipper all come with the territory of being a premier expedited carrier.
Contact Carrier 911 today to learn how an easy-to-use transportation management system, supported by world-class Turvo technology, can help you eliminate endless check calls, optimize airfreight and expedited freight operations.
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