The inner workings of the shipping and transportation industry changed a lot over the past five to 10 years as route optimization benefits have become a focus for inventory and order shipping. The growth of supply chain TMS platforms and the big data they can provide to managers have transformed the transportation industry in unimaginable ways.
Better shipping and logistical solutions have been embraced, leading to a better understanding of how every decision, practice, and step affects the supply chain end to end. Today it is evident with current trends that transportation management systems solutions will rely heavily on real-time data analysis, machine learning, AI automation, and support tools that maximize route optimization processes.
Why Poor Route Optimization Contributes to Higher Freight Spend
- Greater fuel consumption is caused by excessive idling and wait times.
- Wasted miles from driving around with empty loads or needless backtracking.
- Reduced productivity of drivers eventually leads to fewer completed orders.
- Lower overall acceptance rates and higher levels of tender rejections.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for what proper optimization can help avoid within a TMS governed network.
Using a TMS Combines Both Execution and Ongoing Route Optimization
Transportation management systems have a proven ROI. According to a report by Forbes, strategic planning and implementation of TMS platforms have also shown to help bring about freight savings of 8-10% overall. A well-implemented TMS can save companies money by streamlining transportation lanes, maximizing truckload capacity, and improving overall delivery success rates. The promise of machine learning, technology procurement, advanced automation, AI-guided tasks, and faster communications are all poised to allow a TMS to handle more complicated processes and functions better. This, in turn, reduces freight costs and spending, allows for greatly improved route optimizations, and expands freight management overall.
Calculate your potential Saving While Using an enterprise TMS
Additional Ways a TMS Improves Both Activities
Freight management and route optimization go hand in hand, with one feeding off the other. A well-implemented and maintained TMS brings benefits that are seen in several powerful ways:
- It creates a singular source of truth for reviewing all activities outside any office or division to make a data-based starting point for decisions.
- Streamlined operations and automation help remove the human element, reduce errors, and free up workers for more essential tasks.
- Autonomous controls make it faster and easier to reroute shipments in real-time to account for disruptions, delays, and other issues.
- Embedded push notifications keep drivers informed of changes as they occur and allow for honest time communication with team members and clients.
- Shippers realize a strong and greatly improved end-to-end transportation management and execution strategy that allows for a reliable plan.
Improve Your Route Optimization Efforts With a World-Class Enterprise TMS
Poor planning and optimization practices can directly increase freight spend and impact successful delivery statuses in many ways. The best way to reverse this effect is to begin the onboarding process of implementing TMS-supported technology.
