Press Report
Yet transport costs continue to rise. This impacts directly on the value chain. As a result of globalisation, transport routes are becoming longer and transport costs are rising. Logistics providers are forced to factor into their freight charges road and tunnel tolls plus higher personnel costs arising from stricter regulations on drivers' rest periods. The drive to reduce inventory costs has also led to an increased number of journeys and hence an increase in transport costs. Added to this, we have higher fuel prices and a shortage of haulage capacity.
('Der Versandhausberater' special edition 03.2008) There are essentially three possible options for reducing freight costs in the long term: by negotiating new freight rates with logistics providers; by optimising transport planning and management; and by ensuring that freight cost controlling is performed more professionally.
Synchronous flow of goods and information
Central to all efforts towards optimisation is the challenge of synchronising information and goods flow across company boundaries. Here it is a matter of communicating ERP data and significantly enriching this with relevant information concerning weight, cubic volume or lengths for loading. It is only on the basis of this data that, for example, networks for inbound and outbound transport can be optimised. Web-based IT solutions support the integrated networking of all supply chain partners. Software solutions for Supply Chain Execution can be used to automate cross-company transport processes.
Modern solutions such as logistics-server® from inet-logistics can be used by all partners within the transport process, working from their own IT environment. Software of this kind contains its own logic to make transport structures of mail order houses more transparent and efficient. Missing information for transport planning can be filled in. This data can be used as the basis of negotiations with logistics providers. It sheds light on expected flow of goods and dispatch structures.
Furthermore, an integral component is a tool for optimising transport planning. Thus, mail order houses have at their disposal the wherewithal to plan for an optimum use of haulage capacity. But even operators who do not have this tool can still benefit from it: because this system supports the awarding of contracts to the 'optimum' carrier, it takes into account not only the price but also employs internal rules for giving preference to certain carriers on set routes and excluding other carriers for certain types of product etc.
With freight cost controlling, web-based software solutions support the automated checking of all freight costs objectively, professionally and comparatively. Thus, an automatic check can be made to see whether the transport invoiced for has really taken place and whether the weight, capacity and tariff are correct. In this way, erroneous or double invoicing and the addition of supplementary charges not agreed beforehand can be avoided.
Moreover, during the tariff checking phase, it is possible to see whether the freight has been charged at the correct rate. Logistics providers additionally have the opportunity to check via the internet whether other costs that were not part of the agreed tariff (e.g. waiting time) have been incurred and can be charged for. When freight costs have been checked, these can be automatically fed into the ERP system as well as being prorated to individual items or groups of items. This cuts out the unnecessary work involved in multiple calculations of freight costs within different systems.
Significant savings
By introducing a software solution such as logistics-server®, it is possible to save between 5% and 15% of freight costs, depending on initial circumstances. Further savings can be effected by optimising and automating processes for planning, scheduling, monitoring and invoicing transport. Extensive automation in this area can lead to savings of up to 30%. It is thus possible to reconcile the general structural increase in transport costs and the pressure to find sustainable reductions in overall expenditure.