Archive for the ‘Logistics management’ Category

Operational costs and pricing pressure in logistics industry

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

The recent diesel fuel price hike has considerably increased the operational and other costs incurred by the freight logistics firms. A hike of 3 rupee per litre on diesel fuel will increase the operating expenses considerably as most of the full load trucks have a fuel economy of 4 to 7 kilometres per litre.

A 30 MT truck that has a fuel efficiency of 5 kilometres per litre will now have an additional expense of .60 rupee per kilometre with the new diesel price. Consider a truck that covers 500 kilometres a day. The fuel price hike will bring in an additional cost of Rs. 300 per day. If there are 50 such trucks for the firm, the total additional cost per day shoots up to Rs. 15,000. This in turn produces as monthly value of Rs 450,000/-. Thereby the approximate annual operating cost goes up by Rs. 54,00,000/-. The hike will also affect the companies those hire trucks from outside. The rate for hiring the trucks will be increased by the truck owners and this will again cause a burden to the transport firms.

From the past trends, it is evident that the price of the diesel fuel will keep on rising and in near future we can expect the diesel price touching the 65 rupee per litre mark and the petrol price reaching Rs 100 per litre. With the series of hikes happening and the huge amount of additional cost incurring, the best way to improve your profits is by simplifying back office operations, reducing the cost of serving customer etc, and here, SA-FMS ERP advantage pays off with its cost saving benefits for freight and logistics industry.

Some features of SA-FMS include:

  • Incorporates best practices in Freight Logistics industries
  • Excellent controls for accounting and inventory to avoid pilferage
  • On time and within budget implementation practices
  • ERP with guaranteed return on investment (ROI) through operational efficiencies
  • Time tested ERP solution for large and small freight logistics companies

INR 100 = USD 2.2

Android apps to enable logistics mobility

Monday, May 30th, 2011

SA-FMS freight logistics ERP is enabled to work on the Android smartphone and tablet, which means key people such as branch inspectors and managers  can be empowered to access consignment information on the move to track booking, delivery and other information relevant to logistics management so that customer related enquiries are resolved instantly.

  • Android smartphones are widely available from vendors such as HTC, Samsung, LG and Micromax
  • Works with any GSM provider having GPRS / 3G connection
  • SA-FMS Android based app can also be distributed among consignors and consignees

Freight logistics ERP – end user perspective

Friday, May 27th, 2011

Joseph hails from an ordinary family who did not want to continue their traditional job of farming. He completed his pre-degree and went in search of some job which will satisfy his interests. After sending a series of application into various firms, he got a job in the Bangalore office of XYZ Roadways, an established transport and logistics firm, at the age of 19. It has been 31 years now since Joseph joined XYZ.

Being office staff, their clerical works mainly included handling receipts, registers, accounts etc, with a lot of files piled up. As the organization grew, the staff also had to be prepared for the growth from grass root level. It included partial change in their work process with the aid of computers.

Years later, the management decided to improve the process and minimize the workflow. For this, they decided to computerise the entire process and implement logistics management system. As a result, the earlier version of SA-FMS, the logistic management system  was introduced to XYZ. Joseph was much concerned and worried about this step, as many employees including him were not computer savvy. He had a feeling that computers may take up his job and he may become jobless. He was concerned about his work efficiency, once the logistic management software is implemented. He was also concerned about how difficult his further work would be with the transport software.

The change was not that smooth. Freight logistics software was implemented and computers became a part of their work-life. But ERP had all the processes simplified in place, interconnections between all the branches and a delivery tracking software.

There were many anxiety reasons for the staff. Reluctance towards a new technology they think they cannot master, confusions about what can be done by computers and what cannot be done etc. SA-FMS and XYZ management took care in handling the issue by giving training and support to the staff. The effort involved was mainly in dealing with the mind block of the staff. Once it was solved Joseph and his colleagues realized that the logistics management software had all the simplifications for a layman to work on it with mere common sense and organization knowledge. The staff was able to accustom gradually to the system. They realized that there is a considerable amount of time saved. There was no more a delay in communication between the departments and no question about updated information.

SA-FMS underwent several version changes and each time it evolved into a better version which makes tasks simpler for the employees.  Joseph has worked with all these versions and he is very much impressed with the system. According to him, “SA-FMS is very user friendly. I have not been trained in computers and I’m 50 years old. I don’t find any difficulty to use SA-FMS. The colors used are optimum, without causing much strain to the eyes. The interface is well designed and the sorted menu on the left side of the screen helps to select each function from the particular module.” Now Joseph is proficient in the software and he is able to clear the clarifications of his colleagues. He even provides the software training to the new employees hired. SA-FMS indeed has also improved his computer knowledge and he has started using various other features in computers including e-mail, web browsing, word, excel etc.

Freight Logistics industry – India trends

Friday, May 20th, 2011

Freight Logistics ERP solution from SA-FMS. Mumbai, Bangalore. Indore, Kolkata & Kochi

SA-FMS – centralised short and excess register

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011

Managing a volume based freight logistics business in the chaotic semi organised sector is challenging, and often results in waybills being dispatched in parts, wrongly marked or loaded into trucks scheduled for different destination. Reasons being many

  • Limited space available inside metro limits
  • Godown resource constraints
  • Abnormal peak seasonal traffic
  • Season based truck availability
  • Traffic restrictions during business hours in central areas
  • Clerical errors on marking waybill number
  • Similar sounding location names
  • Goods transferred directly into trucks from smaller vans / carts from suppliers
  • Odd working hours for loading and unloading consignments
  • Lack of standardisation in packaging
  • Wrong consignee business name specified
  • Incorrect entry in forwarding note from the consignor or supplier
  • incomplete list of statutory documents provided

The central short excess register is a convenient feature offered along with the SA-FMS ERP suite for freight logistics that enables all the customer touch points access the central information system to mark internal and external complaints on consignments such as short, excess, damages, wrong marking, wrong dispatches etc. These are subsequently match on common attributes by the ERP software in order to bring about efficient tracking, to deliver the waybills to the designated consignee on time and within budget.

Logistics software – Truck hire settlement

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Freight logistics companies operate through different models where some are on point to point while others are on hub and spoke. A few of the providers operate through owned trucks while majority have a mix of owned and hired trucks for haulage. While own trucks ensure safety and reliability, the hired segment offers agility during peak business seasons. Both have their pros and cons. In the case of the owned trucks, fleet management is an major cost centre,  whereas in the hired truck engagement model, the truck hire reconciliation process are often a cause of headache for the operators. Let us look at the hired model in this post.

  • Part advance payment at the booking point
  • Part payments en route (agency, transshipment or branch)
  • Final settlement at the point of delivery
  • Full settlement at the time of submission of POD
  • Manipulation of the hire document by the truck driver
  • Excess payment made in a manual system

SA-FMS has a real time truck hire and settlement system integrated along with the consignment dispatch and unloading modules that allow each of the touch points to access information about the trips, state of the consignment whether delivered in full or part, assess breakages or shortages and make settlement accordingly.

  • Make payment depending on the unloading status of the consignment
  • Track complaints based on the truck provider
  • Make part / full payment
  • Realtime truck hire payment history
  • Truck hire forecasting and fund management

SA-FMS data analysis tool revisited

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Today's freight logistics business environment is complex and challenging, and to stand out from the crowd it is imperative for small and medium businesses reorient themselves and adopt informed decision making best practices so that senior managers and business owners can control what they can measure.

In an earlier post, we mentioned about management information from the Data analysis tool for SA-FMS. Here we are covering some valuable statistical data generated that can bring deep business insights for effective decision making.

Commodity analysis

  • Business contribution of any given commodity transported
  • Average freight realisation and packages carried by these commodities
  • Percentage of short / excess reported on these consignments

Booking analysis

  • Percentage of business contribution to different delivery centres
  • Average freight realisation to all connected delivery centres
  • Average dispatch time to between these centers

Transshipment performance

  • Tonnage handled by each of the transshipment centres
  • Wait time for consignment dispatches to various centres
  • Consignment stock ageing analysis

Consignor and consignee business

  • Business volume over a period with freight realisation
  • Complaints registered on consignments
  • Delays in booking dispatch, transit time and last mile delivery

SA-FMS is a logistics software solution that helps multi branch freight logistics service providers grow their business through better operational control and lower cost of servicing customers. Available in Mumbai, Bangalore, Indore, Kolkata and Kochi.

Freight logistics workshop @ Bangalore

Friday, April 8th, 2011
FMS

Dear all

We are pleased to invite you to the first of our series of workshops on cost savings and operational efficiencies for door to door cargo movers,sundry cargo operators and express parcel services in freight logistics industries having 25 – 400 branch operations. The workshop is designed for business owners and senior managers.

Date : 30th April 2011

Venue : Pai Viceroy, JC Road, Bangalore, India

Timings : 11 am to 1:30 pm followed by lunch

Agenda

  • Welcome address – Mr. Sunil Sharma, MD, Sharma Transports, Bangalore
  • Freight logistics industry – Indian trends, Mr Shekhar Sheetanshu, NITC SoMS
  • Cost reduction in Logistics industry – Duleep Sahadevan, Director, Software Associates
  • Improving customer satisfaction – Remil Rashid, VP Marketing, Software Associates
  • Management Information using SA-FMS – Manoj Kumar, Product manager, Software Associates
  • Vote of thanks

Prior registration is mandatory to attend this event. Send in your name, organisation, email ID and contact number to sa-fms@softwareassociates.co.in or call 0984 778 2246 for confirmation. Hurry. limited seats available.

 

 

 

 

 

Vaigai cargo division selects SA-FMS

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu) based Vaigai cargo has selected SA-FMS lite edition, the leading Freight Logistics ERP suite for small and medium parcel operators to power their network of branches spread across the state to bring about improved operational efficiency and higher customer satisfaction

Vaigai cargo has daily parcel service operations to major cities in Tamil Nadu such as Chennai,Trichy, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem etc and to tier 2 / 3 towns such as Virdhunagar, Sivakasi, Dindugal, Theni, Cumbum,  Cuddalore, Panruti, Neyveli, Chidambaram, Kumily, Periyakulam, Virudhachalam, Batalagundu, and Puducherry

SA-FMS waybill profitability tracking

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

We often see that the cost of servicing the consignor is not taken into consideration while computing the freight, whereas clients are always on the lookout for the most competitive freight charges from logistics service providers . There is often the tendency for sales and marketing  departments to offer special rates to consignors and consignees without proper knowledge on the expenses incurred on each transaction. It is often difficult calculate cost involvement manually for every waybill. The costs could include attributes such as

  • Door collection charges
  • Truck hire (Shared/full load)
  • Loading and unloading charges
  • Basic freight
  • Door delivery charges
  • Delivery collection

SA-FMS has intellgent reports that allow customers evaluate the cost of each transaction by applying the costs at various centers from booking, transshipment and delivery for the parcel service industry

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