In the unstable and ever-changing domestic transportation market in North America, there is a growing need. What is it? It’s easy; it is a need to efficiently and successfully quantify, track, and keep an eye on the best metrics to better handle, manage, and enhance expenses. It sounds fundamental, but in truth, there are complexities.
Transportation complexities such as:
- Just what am I investing today?
- Who exactly are my most excellent carriers, and how can I work with them much better?
- How effective is my existing transport technique, and where am I missing the mark?
- What are the best things to measure to understand where my transport technique is today while getting insight into where it needs to be?
In Transportation Balance Is Key
These complexities underscore a mounting concern dealt with by logistics executives to balance the competing pressures of both expense and service in today’s end to end supply chain. When looking at the pressure around discovering this balance, two elements have come to light in our conversations with executives as the top two pressures. The very first is fuel expense and volatility while under pressure to complete. The 2nd is a heightened awareness of the necessary expense and service effects transportation has on the business as a whole.
External Transportation and Supply Chain Pressures
The external pressure of fuel costs and volatility might leave numerous executives feeling somewhat restricted regarding their ability to control or affect that variant. Combine that feeling with the level of sensitivity of the overall bottom line cost impact to the business, and you have a recipe for losing a good night’s sleep. Let’s take a better look at what to measure and a simple action item that might shift this dynamic at your company.
Here are five key metrics to monitor, benchmark, and enhance transportation spend on your service:
- Change in baseline freight spend year over year
- What portion of your carriers are compliant in the agreement?
- What percentage of your carriers are satisfying their service level and routing compliance requirements?
- What is the average time it takes to process and payout a freight invoice?
- What portion of your transportation billings are currently under review?
By simply beginning to review and keep track of these 5 KPIs, your business will be well on the way to not only optimizing costs however to better understanding the variable impacts and variations of your transport costs. You will start to get a clear photo of where the genuine weaknesses are and which of your carriers are the very best partners of your supply chain.
Dock Scheduling Is A Life-Saver
However, by using dock scheduling, shippers can minimize carrier wait time and accidents while increasing exposure and enhancing resource preparation. I ‘d like to share a more in-depth look at the function that dock scheduling plays in not just improving expenses but also in automating the business. Long waiting times for pick-up, as well as delivery, are costing American shippers, carriers, and consumers millions of dollars every year. Before 2013, truck drivers were able to work 82 hours a week. Federal guidelines have changed, minimizing these hours to 70 per week. Drivers can finish no greater than 14 hours for any shift and might not drive more than 11 hours during the shift. This vibrant contributes to the pressure felt by the executives to stabilize a currently precarious supply chain. Dock scheduling can discover and make it possible for performances at the dock, allowing carriers, shippers, 3PL’s, and warehouses to collaborate carrier schedules with load and dock accessibility. By then making use of several communication channels, the driver can optimize his 70 hours, enabling the required rest period while still offering delivery promptly.
Dock scheduling, using the requirements of the dock of delivery, enables the warehouse or shipper to stage their loads in order of pick-up or delivery while communicating with the carrier company and the particular driver of any packing dock concerns. This level of optimization causes higher performances, which produce substantial outcomes.
All celebrations can flawlessly and efficiently interact throughout the whole process. This enhanced communication and presence enables a faster-closed loop procedure of the entire shipping, delivery, and reporting process leading to:
- Lowered idle times at loading and unloading by 20 to 40% thus decreasing fuels costs
- Increased loading/unloading performance by over 20%
- Transparency in the loading-unloading procedure
- Reduction of transport’s overall impact on business
The most crucial takeaway here is to comprehend what precisely to measure and monitor, understand their influences on your transport expenses, and to take action by moving forward with the visibility and automated collaborative ideas that dock scheduling can offer to your company. Five measures, one step ahead with dock scheduling and your business, will be on its way towards experiencing considerable investment optimization.