Logistics is known as an important tool in today’s business world. The success of a business comes from customer satisfaction, and it is only achieved if your customer receives the goods on time. Hence, the logistic system plays an important role in it. It is important to implement a streamlined as well functioning supply chain to maintain smooth operations even during volatile times.
Nowadays, this can be easily achieved with the help of the right transportation management system solution such as Cario, which is also referred to as a TMS solution. This software helps to improve the overall interaction between your warehouse management system and the order management system.
Generally, it helps to monitor the overall activities related to the goods and the execution of transportation. The transportation management system acts as the central management hub for customers, shippers, logistics matters, and carriers.
Getting the right software is as important as executing logistics activities. You will find hundreds of options in the market for transportation management software. Most of this software will have a few of the common features. Hence it is important to know what you should be looking at while selecting the right transportation management software. Here are a few of the features that you should consider while selecting the right TMS solution.
Carrier Selection
The first feature that you should look for while getting the transportation management software is carrier selection. It helps to determine the carrier as well as the mode automatically. This overall helps the process of procurement.
Route Optimization
With the Route Optimization feature, you would be able to determine the most cost-efficient route for your shipments. This feature makes use of various factors such as road speeds, traffic data, fuel costs, maps, and the modal limitations to provide you with efficient routes for your transportation process. This can save your overall cost in terms of gas as well as time.
Shipment Consolidation
You would have many shipments to transport, and getting the transportation management software solution certainly helps with shipping consolidation. With shipping consolidation, you can reduce the overall cost further by scheduling and arranging the shipments in sets. This also helps in maximizing the overall load consolidation.
Contract Management
Dealing with multiple businesses also asks you to keep a record of various terms and agreements of the respective carrier companies. TMS solution allows you to track all the previous agreements on a real-time basis along with individual carriers. Some of the TMS solutions also provide you with the overall cost of each carrier to let you choose the best one for your next shipment.
Freight Estimates and Payments
The next feature that you should look for is the freight estimates and payments system. The software that you choose should be able to calculate the overall delivery cost based on distance, shipping method, and cargo weight. Apart from this, it should also let your account access all the invoices, creating the vouchers, reducing errors, etc.
Product Visibility and Shipping Support
The full product visibility feature helps you to access the entire shipment status right from the start till the end. Hence make sure to get the TMS solution to rate and route your shipping packages.
Tracking and Tracing
Tracking or getting the real-time status of your shipment is the important feature that you should look for while getting the right TMS solution for your organization. The right TMS solution will help to provide you with all the relevant data between the customer and the carrier.
Risk Management
A good transportation management software solution will always help you to automate the auditing process and generate a cross-border report. Getting the right software would help you to avoid all kinds of national as well as international risks.
Warehouse and Yard Management
It is important to check for the Warehouse facility’s real-time information system in the transportation management software solution as it helps to oversee the trailer as well as truck movements at your manufacturing as well as distribution facilities.
Business Data Analysis
A TMS solution with Business Data Analysis helps you with analytics capabilities that can observe the trends in your industry. Hence it can certainly help to improve the overall procedures as well as business operations.
