Running your freight operations through manual means is no longer an option for freight forwarders, who want to compete with the best and grow in the future. This is the digital age and the future is sustainable. You can’t expect to be one of the best in the business without investing in logistics management software. Lower costs, higher productivity, effective communication, improved route management, real-time shipment tracking, and greater efficiency are just some of the advantages of freight automation.
What does a logistics dashboard do for your business?
Logistics automation is central to digital transformation in freight forwarding and it covers every part of your operations. Not only can you access all freight management tools using a single dashboard, you can communicate better with your employees and stakeholders too.
Real-time shipment tracking
You get alerts about your shipment leaving and arriving at different ports, getting clearance at customs, and reaching the recipient among other notifications. Trust your logistics management software to keep you updated on the progress of your shipment in real-time and assist you in optimizing route management.
Monitoring performance
The incoming data about your daily operations, shipments, sales trends, stakeholders, and industry news is organized by your freight management system, which also visualizes data to help you gain insights. You can generate automated reports and use specific sets of data to watch important patterns emerge about your performance.
Route management
It’s important to select the most suitable routes for your shipment whether it’s being transported by a single carrier across multiple modes or multiple carriers. Real-time tracking is a prominent feature of supply chain dashboards. You receive alerts about your shipment’s departure, arrival, and customs clearance among other milestones.
Planning and forecasting
You have accurate, well-organized data to guide your freight plans thanks to monitoring operations using a logistics dashboard. Different teams also produce reports and share insights about challenges and solutions. Integrations with other freight management tools helps you improve your forecasting abilities, especially those related to inventory and route management.
Data management
There are patterns hidden in the mass of data coming in from various sources to your freight management system. Fortunately, you can get all that data organized into useful insights that are visualized for reports, which can also be shared with stakeholders. Studying freight data allows you to streamline your operations and keep up with industry trends.
Why you need supply chain dashboards
Manual methods put a strain on your employees, slow down operations, carry the risk of human error, increase costs, and create more waste as compared to automation. Did you know that a considerable percentage of manual invoices have errors in the first draft? Think about how long it takes to gather insights, organize data, and produce reports through manual means. Logistics automation solves many of the problems freight forwarders face today.
Reduced operational costs
Save fuel through improved route management, real-time shipment tracking, and efficient communication. You can manage your inventory in an economical way by accurate forecasting, WMS integration, and automated restocking when stocks are running low. A freight management system enables you to spend less energy and use your warehouse storage space more wisely.
Informed decision making
The more data you have, the better decisions you can make for your business. The real-time flow of data is organized on your logistics dashboard where it can be accessed by relevant teams. You can avoid delays and save time otherwise spent on manual data collection, data visualization, stakeholder reporting, and more. Improved route management via automation is a major advantage you shouldn’t miss out on.
Greater sustainability
Logistics management software contributes to a more sustainable approach to freight forwarding by reducing your carbon footprint, lowering fuel costs, eliminating the use of paper, and optimizing your operations for minimum energy consumption. You can even reorganize your warehouse management system to ensure better communication and space usage to consume less electricity.
Higher efficiency
You’ll notice an increase in your employee productivity and the speed of your operations by controlling everything through supply chain dashboards. Having a full view of what’s going on in your business and getting real-time feedback from your team helps you optimize your freight operations. The goal of an efficient, sustainable approach is to use minimum resources to get the most tasks completed in an optimum manner.
How to use your freight management system
There’s no replacement for the centralized control freight forwarders enjoy through automation. You can monitor your entire operation from a single point. It’s convenient to have supply chain dashboards that keep you connected to every member of your team on-the-go. Communication becomes faster and easier. Real-time data flows in through notifications and gets organized in an efficient manner. Auto-generated reports by logistics management software create a clear picture of ongoing operations and future predictions. You can send automated reports within your team and to stakeholders for quick updates.
Visualizing insights
You have a central logistics dashboard that provides different options to insert your freight data for creating graphs and charts that best match your requirements. Workflows can be presented in the form of flowcharts while timelines are useful for project management. You can also depend on timelines to depict milestones, past journeys, and future predictions.
Automated reporting
Numbers are necessary to support your claims in reporting, but manual reporting carries the risk of human error. Depending on the number of clients you’re caring for simultaneously and the frequency of reporting, this task can present serious challenges. Supply chain dashboards have the capability to extract relevant data and produce reports on demand.
Real-time notifications
Expanding your operations means greater distances between your teams, but automated alerts go a long way to making that distance seem shorter. Distance is an issue in shipment tracking, which increases the value of real-time tracking and reporting. Your freight management system alerts you about arrivals, departures, clearances, traffic updates, expected delays along the route, and more.
Handling inventory
Avoid running out of stock of items that are sold out fast and overstocking items that aren’t fast-selling by relying on the precision of your logistics management software. You can set up integrations such as warehouse management systems (WMS) that have been automated to order items that need stocking beyond a certain level. You’ll also be aware of sale patterns of items depending on the time of the year.
Adding integrations
Just like warehouse management systems (WMS), you can try other integrations such as Enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools for streamlining freight operations. You’ll be able to access them in one place using your logistics dashboard. You can also choose integrations related to procurement, sales, tracking, and more to increase efficiency in every area.
Schedule management
Track your shipment in real-time as it moves from the dispatch point, customs, carrier, and finally reaches the customer. Combining aspects of route management and shipment tracking in real-time using supply chain dashboards, you can organize schedules. All the teams involved in handling a certain shipment can be updated quickly, ensuring smooth delivery.
Customer satisfaction
Making more realistic schedules using real-time tracking of shipments helps upgrade your customer services. The modern customer is accustomed to instant gratification and while the delivery can’t be made in seconds, they can be appeased with real-time alerts. Use your freight management system to arrange automated notifications sent to your customers about their shipments.
Take advantage of automation to optimize freight operations at every level, free up your employee’s time, boost overall productivity, make better decisions, reduce expenditure, increase efficiency, and offer more value to your customers. Supply chain dashboards provide centralized control over your business activities from handling inventory to reporting. Gain an edge over your competitors and build a more sustainable approach towards freight forwarding using logistics management software.
