During the conversations with our clients, I notice that, in project based logistics, demands and expectations are constantly increasing. The clients of our clients expect shorter delivery periods, higher predictability and more flexibility  - but against the lowest cost possible. In this blog, I explain how data integration, chain collaboration and transparency can help to make logistic processes more efficient, to reduce the error probability and to reduce costs.

Reasons 

Particularly for organizations who transport a lot on ad hoc basis, mistakes are looming, resulting in delays and higher costs. An important reason for these mistakes is a lack of information sharing. This information is often present in for example an Excel file, but the rest of the organization -or your client, or the client of your client- is not able to access it. Because of the lack of the information, it is impossible to really plan efficiently, for example by smartly combining several shipments, or by anticipating in a timely manner. I sometimes say: if you leave it long enough in your warehouse, eventually it will become urgent.

From data to information to insight

To be able to truly work efficiently, close cooperation in the chain is necessary. At the moment, too much data is only being stored at corporate level. By strategically combining this data and by sharing it with other parties in the chain, you achieve end-to-end visibility in the supply chain. Reports give ‘high level’ overview as well as insight in the underlying data. You gain insight in options for optimization and you are able to work more transparently by sharing relevant logistic information with your customers.

The value of sharing

Information exchange within the chain helps to prevent mistakes, to raise the customer satisfaction level and to make processes proceed more efficiently. Your advantage: less activity, the ability to anticipate faster, shorter delivery periods, less mistakes and lower costs.

Our approach

The way to realize the in this blog outlined improvements is a combination of modern tools and a flexible approach. At Yellowstar we start with a standard basis that serves as the foundation for the requesting company and the supplier to work together right from the start to realise a demand-oriented IT solution, re-using already existing components when possible and developing new ones as required for the specific business situation.

As Sustainability Coach, I support our clients to make their logistic processes and systems work more efficiently. One of the things we do is regular consultation with the top 5 users of our software. We investigate how we can design the system in such a way that the customers will work even more efficiently, resulting in more savings. We combine this information with our ‘best practices’ based on the data we collect. That way, we strive to reduce the amount of actions that a user has to perform, for example by replacing manual actions by EDI. That is a very concrete tool to directly increase efficiency and to reduce the error probability.