One of the most suitable ways to capitalize on opportunities, changes and challenges in the transportation industry is to utilize the most appropriate technology and software tools that facilitate business operations and deliver value each day.
Many companies with basic and complex logistics operations have realized the benefits of using the Transportation Management System (TMS). When the right software is in place, businesses in shipping sectors can enjoy seamless logistics management and conduct business across the globe with ease. Furthermore, shippers and transportation service providers can use the transportation management tool to monitor their supply chain in real time, improve shipping efficiency, and minimize transportation costs.
Top 7 Transportation Management Tools:
Transportation Management System (TMS) is a subset of or a module within the supply chain or enterprise resource planning software that helps companies manage their carriers and freights. The main goal of TMS is to study the processes involved in the planning phase and manage it to deliver goods from one place to another. It is meant for combining orders and maximizing return on the user’s logistics spend and accurately forecast demand and shipment volumes to fine-tune fleet, freight, and logistics management.
As transportation business owners compete to deliver products, they may plan ineffective routes, run less than capacity loads, expediting shipments or make other expensive errors that reduce their margins. The TMS continually monitors ongoing activities and also provides real-time alerts of potential problems. It allows businesses to plan and optimize routes, make payments, conduct freight audit, view orders, manage yards, and execute transportation operations.
MercuryGate
MercuryGate creates transportation management system solutions; the perfect marriage of new technology and real-world dynamics. This core TMS software is constantly enhanced with added functionality. They have honed their expertise by consulting with domestic and international partners.
Features:
- Multimodal
- Multi-leg planning optimization and execution,
- Control tower visibility and decision support
- Reusability for set-up, on-boarding, and repetitive moves
- Allocation, procurement, and invoicing in a closed-loop process
- High configurable TMS in the cloud and on mobile devices
- Adaptability to support and improve the workflow
JDA
JDA transportation and logistics management solutions help to reduce administrative and operating costs while improving productivity and visibility by automating and streamlining business processes. By providing standardization throughout your procurement, planning, execution, and freight audit processes in addition to centralizing logistics visibility, JDA’s easy to use solutions quickly capture and distribute accurate information to sharpen decision making across your supply chain.
Features:
- Support for the entire transportation lifecycle
- Order management through customer service and financial settlement
- Operational feasible planning
- Leading to reliable network performance.
Oracle
Transportation management oracle offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications, platform services, and engineered systems.
Features:
- Operational planning
- Transportation intelligence
- Fleet management
- Freight payment and billing
- Carrier sourcing
SAP
SAP transportation management system can accurately forecast demand and shipment volumes to finetune transportation planning, enhance fleet, freight, and logistics management. It can also help you gain real-time visibility into global and domestic shipping across all transportation modes and industries.
Features:
- Transportation capacity and demand planning
- Transportation requirements management
- Freight planning and optimization
- Interactive freight tendering
- Freight and forwarding settlement
- Collaboration portal
Cerasis
C This tool is a transportation management system that gives greater control and better visibility into the shipping and spends processes. Cerasis also reduces shipping problems through over-the-road transportation management solutions.
Features:
- Inbound and vendor freight management feature that enables enterprises to stay in control of all shipments which include incoming and vendor freight
- Transportation accounting features allows enterprises to receive a weekly consolidated invoice
BluJay TM
This is the leading global platform for shippers and logistics providers and is a core component of the BluJay global trade network. As a true SaaS model, users get the benefit of innovative, fast and scalable solutions and also BluJay Solutions’ trade network.
Features:
- Transportation planning
- Scale infrastructure
- Quickly adapt the technology based on changing business needs
- Centralizes control to manage transportation for the entire transportation process
- Enables multiple partners to leverage technology through a common platform.
MPO TMS
The MPO supply chain suite includes a TMS with features to streamline processes across the transportation lifecycle and multiple carriers to help you improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer satisfaction
Features
- Provide multi-leg planning
- Manage order consolidation
- Carrier selection
Transportation businesses can use these tools to determine the best transport schemes based on a specific parameter, batch shipment orders, optimize terrestrial transport rounds, manage inbound and outbound logistics, control service quality based on KPIs, track transportation in real time and select transportation providers. It also provides shippers visibility into resources & costs and automates routine processes and alerts users if something needs immediate attention.
The following are the benefits for the transportation and trucking industry from these transportation management tools:
- Improved customer service because of well-executed deliveries
- Cost saving resulting from optimization of route planning
- Increased driver productivity
- Minimized wear and tear on vehicles
- Real-time tracking and monitoring
Before you finalize on a transportation management tool, make sure you have enough trained IT staff. Make sure the type of TMS is chosen based on your requirements and volume of transactions.
Make sure to choose the tool with features that are best suited for your business’ needs such as risk management of fragile goods. Also, look out for adaptability of the solution. The benefits of these tools are not limited to large corporations; even small transportation businesses can take advantage of them.
Choosing the right TMS Software is a tedious process as the features and benefits differ from each other. But, the standard TMS software should meet your immediate business requirements so that you can achieve targeted ROI and integrate easily with other internal systems. The price should be affordable and include installations costs.
Reliant Funding recommends that all business owners evaluate any possible tool, software, decision with regards to the particular business needs and regulatory considerations. Reliant Funding does not offer any official review or recommendation of any of the solutions above and provides them as an educational resource only.
