Page 41 - Inbound Logistics | April 2017 | Digital Issue

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Brad Hollister, is Executive Vice President, ClearView Audit ,
855-737-3444 • info@clearviewaudit.com

TMS Launches New Era: Control Tower Visibility

t wasn’t long ago that top executives around the world service, vendor compliance and freight accrual can greatly
had to be convinced why they needed accounting influence every aspect of a company’s operations–from which
software to run their companies. Today it is unthinkable of vendors products are purchased from to the policies for how
Iany company operating without accounting software to salespeople mark up freight. The possibilities of what can be
manage their company’s finances. done with live data are infinite as a business experiences real-
The importance of technology in shipping is starting time visibility from a centralized control tower.
to reach this same critical point for most shippers. The Perhaps the most important benefit from centralized
transportation management system (TMS) was born at a control tower visibility of the supply chain is the level of flex-
time of the perfect storm for any industry. In the United ibility that comes as a result of real-time analytics and alerts.
States, deregulation and adoption of computers arrived The centralized control tower allows for a robust provider
simultaneously. Shippers were suddenly able to consider network that enables shippers to become agnostic in the
multiple carriers for the same lane and use basic technology decision of who actually hauls the freight. Many shippers
to assign carriers to shipments. The TMS industry was created have used a singular 3PL network as their coping mechanism
with the idea to execute one critical function: Make a label to for achieving centralized visibility. Is one of your locations
get the freight off the dock. suddenly experiencing service issues to Canada? View the
Thirty years later, the core functionality of TMS systems has other providers in the market and consider “what-if” results if
changed very little. The current TMS market leaders operate you had utilized services of companies not part of your cur-
in much the same way today as during the birth of the TMS rently active providers. Centralized control tower visibility
industry 30 years ago. Many legacy technology platforms sim- makes the exclusion of under-performing providers as well
ply route the shipment to the provider according to the “rules” as inclusion of new providers a real-time function in the next
manually entered into a static table. Mission accomplished (get generation of TMS technologies.
freight off the dock). Little regard is given to dynamic planning The industry is entering an era where the current state of
prior to the shipment nor visibility after the shipment docu- legacy TMS technology as we know it is approaching the
ment is created (parcel label or BOL for freight). end of its lifecycle. To further complicate the topic, most ERP
Shippers today are beginning to pinpoint the future companies now offer their own TMS systems, which equate
functionality needed to modernize and automate their sup- to little more than simply generating a shipping document,
ply chains. Large shippers with complex supply chains are and get freight off the dock. The gap between the needs of
aware that different business units within their company shippers and TMS providers’ capabilities is rapidly widening
are extremely isolated and operating independently across by the day. It will be interesting to watch and see if the leg-
business segments. Users at one facility process shipments acy TMS companies that have defined TMS technology begin
differently than users at another location. Executives over- to rebuild their fragile infrastructures to accommodate the
seeing multiple shipping locations need centralized visibility artificial intelligence demanded in tomorrow’s supply chains,
into all locations. Shippers demand centralized control and or whether they will acquire companies with cutting-edge
visibility of their supply chain in real time. Shippers demand technology architecture as a means of staying relevant.
a control tower. While the latter seems more likely, the real-time, centralized
A control tower that offers visibility of worldwide shipping control tower demands of shippers and legacy table based
across all modes of transportation, all vendors, across all label making are about to collide as existing IT infrastructures
business locations, down to the user level will be the objective are pushed to their limits to keep up with real-time visibility
of the next generation of TMS systems. The effects of real- of all shipping events across all worldwide shipping loca-
time supply chain data have potential for tremendous impact tions. Your next TMS will soon serve as your company’s control
upon a business. Analyzing real-time visibility of carrier tower with widespread visibility across all departments in your
performance, routing exceptions, shipping errors, customer organization.

April 2017 • Inbound Logistics 39

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