Archive for the ‘truck’ Category
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.
Posted in booking, delivery tracking logistics software, dispatch, Freight logistic, Logistics management, logistics-cost-savings, packages, RFID, sa-fms, tracking, transshipment, truck, waybill | No Comments »
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
Tags: freight logistics, logistics software, transshipment
Posted in booking, delivery tracking logistics software, Logistics management, transshipment, truck, truck driver | No Comments »
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Applications from Android smart phones and Tablets
Thanks to the i (innovation) age, Android smartphones, iPods, iPhones and iPads have become game changers. The music industry, mobile phone market and now the netbook segment is set to undergo sea change. With the growth of Android seen on the horizon, the open source alternative for Tablet PC is soon becoming a reality. These new generation – royalty free touch screen devices that runs on google Android operating system on Android smartphones should come as a boon to the semi organized freight and logistics industries in the developing world. Ease of use, breaking language barriers, lower cost of ownership. ease of maintenance and mobile connectivity through existing modes are key reasons for acceleration in adoption. Ogdopus is a hosted product for logistics that enables home delivery management using Android smartphones. Some of the areas where mobile computing could help freight and trucking companies are as follows
Applications for freight logistics using android smartphones
- Warehouse and yard management
- Tracking of consignments from warehouses and open spaces
- Door delivery consignment monitoring
- Ease of inspection and compliance
- Verification of accounts
- Monitoring of trucks from yards and workshops
- Enabling accurate information on dispatches
- Performing routine maintenance of trucks on the move
- GPS integrated services
- Cost reduction in providing door delivery services
- City map and route planning
- Provide customer service in remote locations
- Introduction of eWaybills for security and convenience
- Customer locality applications that could run on android mobile handsets
- Ensuring safety of consignments using tablet PC
- Organizing en-route information of goods loaded and unloaded
- Home delivery services such as florists, pizzas, cakes etc
Tags: android app logistics, android smartphone app, cost saving logistics software, logistics-cost-savings, ogdopus
Posted in android for logistics software, consignment tracking, cost savings, dispatch, truck, waybill | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
A GSM/GPRS based vehicle tracking system is an alternative to the expensive satellite based vehicle tracking systems being used by freight and logistics companies in the Western countries. All these solutions are capable of tracking the company fleet of trucks and keeping the traffic control information on the location and speed of various trucks operating throughout the country. The GPS also helps in tracking stolen trucks, a common problem for those operating in some regions of India. Usually a gadget is installed in the vehicle to be monitored – a remote station for centralised control and monitoring.
SA-FMS can integrate with these industry standard devices to provide up to date position of the consignment for customers.
Posted in consignment tracking, Freight logistic, gprs, gsm, tracking, truck | No Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2008
The quantum of data generated by SA-FMS Freight Logistics software introduces tremendous scope for business analysis. With the help of cutting edge data mining tools the possibilities are endless for the management to fine tune operations, improve profitability and provide superlative customer support.
- Measurement of customer business trends
- Alerts on dip in customer business volume
- Best performing booking stations
- Most profitable truck routes
- Trans-shipment volume analysis
- Customer classification on the basis of monthly freight volume
- Cost of serving customers
- Communicating on a continuous basis with most profitable customers
- Truck load utilisation and load profitability
Posted in analysis, bus cargo software, Freight logistic, logistics software, sa-fms, truck | No Comments »
