U.S. transportation, shipping, and logistics often get ranked as one of the most risk-prone of all industries. Supply chain integration makes it easier to focus on logistics compliance throughout the entire network.
There is a lot to keep track of regarding transportation trends, regulatory compliance, and managing the inherent freight risk in your supply chain network.
Freight transportation and logistics face many outside risks from increased market demands, evolving consumer needs, fluctuating economic conditions, and other significant factors. These risks and stress points require transportation companies and freight-shipping organizations to establish and maintain thorough and innovative risk management strategies.
Fortunately, a well-implemented TMS platform can automate many of the most common logistics activities. It streamlines this compliance work into more efficient and manageable steps and actions.
It is important to remember there are two primary forms of compliance: regulatory compliance and compliance with process standardization.
This article addresses compliance with process standardization and what freight management parties need to know.
What Is Logistics Compliance?
Managing supply chain operations efficiently and complying with the ever-changing evolution of supply chain processes requires visibility and transparency. Teams not only need access to data and information. They must also be able to apply logistics data to manage risk in a rapidly evolving environment.
The complexity of the modern supply chain regarding transportation and the geographic distances involved makes it challenging to maintain logistics compliance. Further, compliance requirements may vary from business to business. Smart transportation solutions help management teams improve decisions from start to finish.
The Benefits of Knowing How to Manage Freight Risk in the Logistics Industry
It takes a lot of effort to manage the risks and ensure everyone stays on the same page between shippers, carriers, and customers. Such efforts involve:
- Close collaboration with all parties: suppliers, distributors, vendors, drivers, brokers, freight forwarders, carriers, and customers.
- Careful monitoring of real-time statuses to avoid disruptions, protect services, and safeguard reputations.
- Compliance program development and onboarding improve supply chain visibility and logistics optimization.
- Continual collaboration between team members and partners helps shippers and carriers coordinate faster and more easily.
5 Tips to Manage Logistics Compliance Risk
- Know Your Risks in Real-Time. Utilize data and ensure accurate and reliable information is used to make decisions and hold everyone accountable.
- Ensure All Teams Use the Right Systems to Execute Changes Within the Transportation Network. Obviously, not all companies will use the same systems, but that is where a unified, integrated platform like MercuryGate’s TMS can help.
- Guard Your Company Against Risks by Following the Same Rules for Onboarding New LSPs and Holding Them to Your Expectations. Proper vetting, planning, and tracking the performance of network partners can lower risk.
- Use Analytics to Know When Certain Modes or Carriers Fall Outside of Performance Expectations. Analytics can provide a lifeline for companies that are unsure what to track and when to implement penalties or corrective actions for network partners.
- Digitize Your Freight Routing Guide. The routing guide should be a versatile, digital series of process expectations. With the diversity in the market, the routing guide should be the cornerstone of all decisions for transportation. Thus, freight management parties should leverage waterfall-like tendering and scheduling processes to maintain logistics process compliance.
Having a dynamic transportation management workflow makes it easier to manage logistics compliance risks.
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Unify Your Logistics Compliance Strategy With a Singular Instance of Your TMS
Teams that maintain real-time awareness and use proven methods and tools are better positioned to deal with issues and concerns regarding logistics compliance. Partnering with industry experts makes the entire process more manageable. Ready to find out more about how MercuryGate supports logistics compliance and governance?
