One hundred and twenty: that's how many internal and external partners a company's logistics experts have to coordinate with on average. 80% of this coordination takes place by e-mail, telephone or fax. Companies that do not make an effort to optimize their delivery coordination lose 5.1% EBIT - companies that tackle this process , on the other hand, achieve EBIT growth of 4.9%. In this article, we'll tell you exactly what we mean by delivery coordination, what challenges it poses, and how they can be solved.
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The Sites is constantly on the move: Goods are delivered, transported to their storage location and later picked up again. Each time, this requires coordination with the freight forwarder or truckDrivers in order to know exactly when which goods are to be delivered or picked up. After all, the idle times of the trucks should be kept to a minimum in order to enable a fast onward journey and efficient transport. However, communication along the way - delivery coordination - is usually anything but efficient.
Typically, delivery coordination consists of many small steps: the delivery announcement, the up-to-the-minute communication of the time window, the coordination upon arrival - and often still the communication of delays. In four out of five cases, this delivery coordination takes place via e-mail, telephone and fax. In today's world, of course, this form of communication seems long outdated.
As already mentioned at the beginning, companies regularly have to coordinate their logistics with an average of 120 internal and external partners. Internally, these include purchasing, supply chain management, transport management, production and sales. External partners include freight forwarders, suppliers and other 3PL providers.
This multitude of partners makes delivery reconciliation a challenging process for many reasons process. First and foremost, it makes it a major time eater. Depending on the size of the company, hundreds of e-mails, calls or faxes can thus be exchanged quickly every day, each of which always requires the attention and time of one sender and one recipient.
But it's not just time that plays a role here: the exchange of information is ultimately followed by the rapid coordination of all parties involved. The Sites must be prepared for the arrival of trucks, the Drivers must know which parking space is provided for them and what they must observe during arrival and handling - after all, each Sites works differently.
When many people and little automation are involved in process , the susceptibility to errors increases at the same time. Information is lost, wrong decisions are made and downtimes increase - the turnover decreases.
The decisive task of time slot management is optimized delivery coordination. The term Time slot management is used to summarize the coordination of all loading and unloading processes at the loading bay.
The aim is to control as precisely as possible the time slot in which trucks arrive and their goods can be unloaded, as well as the planning of the loading and departure of a truck. If errors occur in this process and more trucks are expected at a time slot than can be handled, they have to wait - increasing idle times and consequently causing demurrage charges. This is because the timely handling of trucks is the responsibility of the person managing Sites . And: If the idle times exceed a reasonable period, he must pay demurrage charges to the transport companies.
Optimized delivery coordination and consequently reduced downtimes therefore save companies cash directly - and just as indirectly. Good planning and punctual dispatch have many advantages:
Internal processes are simplified and relationships with external partners are improved. But: How can the Time slot management and thus the delivery coordination be optimized?
The biggest challenge in time slot management is coordination. E-mail, telephone and fax seem to be out of date: the effort required to coordinate individually with each of the 120 internal and external partners is too great. The possibilities of digitization can provide a remedy here: Intelligent digital processes simplify and partially automate coordination.
With TradeLink, we have taken on precisely this task - and digitized delivery coordination. The result is a platform that replaces e-mail, telephone and fax for Time slot management . We call this #collaborativelogistics.
On TradeLink, all internal and external partners come together to perform their delivery reconciliation - without having to go through the hassle of installing software. On the cloud platform, you can map all your logistics processes in detail at one location, configure them flexibly and integrate them into your daily work routine without any additional effort.
Suppliers are enabled to independently book free time slots at your Sites . Appointments, postponements and confirmations are automatically sent to all partners for whom the respective information is relevant - and planning is adjusted to changes in real time. In this way, everyone involved can keep an eye on what is happening where and when at all times.
With TradeLink you optimize your delivery coordination, reduce idle times and subsequently demurrage. Waiting times for incoming trucks are reduced by up to 95%, 30% costs in incoming and outgoing goods processes can be saved and a 20% higher storage capacity can be achieved. In the free initial consultation you will learn how.
Your employees can find all pending loads and unloads in a clear dock and yard management system, and goods receipts can be prepared in advance with a digital delivery bill. Based on the actual delivery volume, employees can be scheduled accordingly so that resources are neither missing nor unused.
All processes are recorded digitally and can be retrieved at a later date. With this corresponding data, key figures can be determined and processes continuously optimized. This creates transparency and reliability for your company, for your internal partners as well as for your external partners - and all this without e-mail, telephone or fax. Welcome to the here and now.
