MAKING THE CASE: Managed Transportation Services
DRIVER SHORTAGES, CAPACITY IMBALANCES, federal government regulations and overall robust economic conditions are all currently playing havoc with transportation costs. At the same time, companies are grappling with new standards of velocity, market choice and cost for their products. Consumers are demanding better variety and greater availability at the lowest possible cost—further increasing complexity and intensifying pressure on supply chains. When an organization’s supply chain capabilities are lacking, it leads to increased costs, troublesome shipping complications and dissatisfied end customers—all of which can take a serious toll on a shipper’s bottom line.
To meet continually-changing consumer demands and expectations in an increasingly-competitive market, shippers need fast, efficient supply chains that can go the distance. SURVIVING IN A CARRIER’S MARKET Demand for trucks is greater than usual right now, with the supply of vehicles impacted by a reduced driver pool, a hot economy and mandates like the electronic logging device (ELD) rule. The latter is effectively diminishing the number of drivers who are available to operate vehicles. Exacerbating the problem is an industry that has been reluctant to invest in new vehicles over the last couple of years. “Combined, all of these factors have put the balance of supply and demand out of kilter in the transportation world and effectively created a trucker’s market,” says Transplace CEO Frank McGuigan.
“Combined, all of these factors have put the balance of supply and demand out of kilter in the transportation world and effectively created a trucker’s market. At the same time, retailers are upping their compliance fees and fines, and both retailers and the manufacturers are trying to reduce inventory levels.” — Frank McGuigan, CEO, Transplace
“At the same time, retailers are upping their compliance fees and fines, and both retailers and the manufacturers are trying to reduce inventory levels. Everyone wants just-in-time service to reduce back-ofthe-store inventory.” These unprecedented freight capacity conditions are not only making it difficult for shippers to operate in, but it’s also chipping away at their bottom lines. “I’ve never seen a market as constrained for capacity as the one we’re in right now,” says Mark McEntire, senior vice president of operations, Transplace.
“Shippers right now need three things: speed, visibility and service. They also need greater control over their transportation operations, better shipment visibility and improved end-toend supply chain performance.” — Mark McEntire, Senior Vice President of Operations, Transplace
Those demands are putting even more strain on an already-constrained transportation market, where back-to-back hurricanes in 2017, rapid growth in e-commerce sales and an overall economic lift are also disrupting the balance. “We’re in the middle of a perfect storm here,” adds McEntire. “For shippers, it’s all about finding capacity in a market where a lot of carriers have consolidated or gone out of business— and lost a high number of drivers to other industries— over the last several years.”
SPEED, VISIBILITY AND SERVICE
Shippers that chose to tackle these mounting challenges alone can quickly find themselves operating end-to-end supply chains that are inefficient, expensive and plagued by poor visibility issues.
Those shippers are forced to manage their own carrier relations (e.g., rate negotiations, freight claims, etc.), oversee end-to-end freight moves, set carrier appointments, schedule dock and yard time, stay compliant and gather and process critical data—and they are missing out on the tangible savings that come from outsourcing these and other processes to a reliable managed transportation service (MTS) provider. “Shippers right now need three things: speed, visibility and service,” says McEntire. “They also need greater control over their transportation operations, better shipment visibility and improved end-to-end supply chain performance. The right logistics service provider enables all of this and more, and in a very cost-effective and streamlined manner that allows companies to focus on what they do best: run their business.”
A Solution to Address Transportation’s “Perfect Storm”
I N A MANAGED TRANSPORTATION SERVICES (MTS) arrangement, a shipper contracts with a third party to plan and execute freight moves on its behalf. Instead of the shipper’s own internal personnel planning and executing those moves, they are instead employed by the MTS supplier to work on the shipper’s behalf, according to ARC Advisory Group, which estimates that MTS can save shippers between 2% and 10% on transportation spend. Providers like Transplace also offer their own proprietary transportation management systems (TMS) and other advanced solutions that allow shippers to leverage very flexible software deployment models. Offering a complete suite of transportation management, strategic capacity, and cross-border and global trade services, for example, Transplace’s customizable logistics solutions and best-in-class technology give organizations greater control over their transportation operations, enhanced shipment visibility and improved overall supply chain performance. =The benefits don’t end there. Because logistics management services sits atop Transplace’s proprietary technology offering, shippers don’t need their own TMS. “The technology brings the normal value that a transportation management technology would, but at a larger scale,” says Transplace CEO Frank McGuigan.
“It’s been designed to accommodate the diversity of our customer base, their needs and unique requirements, and to give the shipping community overall more options as it relates to order management, optimization, configuration and data services and management.” =Transplace also has employees out on the front line, solving problems and handling exception management within its shipper network all day, every day. And, its analytics team closely watches its customers’ performance and keeps a close eye on metrics trends, fail points and other key performance indicators (KPIs) using a “Manage for Daily Improvement” program. “We’re constantly looking for opportunities to provide better service,” says McGuigan, “or prevent something negative from happening within the network.”
Conoce más en https://scg-lm.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/transplace_mtc_managed_transportation_services_100318_final.pdf
Fuente: www.transplace.com
