Digitalizing Transport Management

Contents

The author

Acknowledgements

Foreword

1   Transport management system

The logisticians of the 21st century

Challenges in transport management

Essential steps to make technological change a reality

A comprehensive solution: a transport management system (TMS)

Transport order management

Warehouse operations

Other functions of a TMS

Bulk transport management

Information analysis and applied intelligence

The future of transport management systems

2   Freight rate management

Where are my prices?

Manual creation of freight rates

The digital solution for rate management

The operation of a digital rate management system

Data analytics

Rates negotiation

The future of rate management

3   Visibility of the transport chain

Where are my goods?

Key drivers of a digital solution

The operation of a track and trace system

Notifications and alerts

IoT devices for increased visibility

Tracking of shipping containers and vessels

Air cargo tracking

Road transport tracking

Asset and inventory visibility

Tracking analytics

More sustainable supply chains

The future of visibility in the supply chain

Glossary

The author

David Soler has a degree in Fine Arts and has developed his professional activity in the fields of publishing, corporate communication, sectorial marketing and teaching. With more than forty-five years of experience in the publishing sector, he is the founder and editorial director of the publishing houses Marge Books, which specialises in technical and organisational management publishing, and Montaber, which focuses on social sciences and critical thinking. He currently directs various technical and educational collections, and is the author of the Diccionario de logística (2009), Practical Guide to The Incoterms 2020 Rules (2021), Digitalizing Transport Management (2024), and co-author of Catalonia Logistics (2006 and 2012) and Manual de gestion del transporte (2015). In the field of sectorial marketing, for a decade he promoted and directed various international trade fairs and forums for the logistics and transport industry in Spain and Latin America. He currently promotes the creation of technical literature related to the supply chain through the Logisnet Technical Literature Award and the Logisnet Academy Award, the latter aimed at works developed within an academic framework.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the many contributions that have helped to develop the contents of this book. In particular, the valuable comments of Javier Cortina, reflective, critical and rigorous, from a holistic view of supply chain processes. Also, especially, the contributions of Adrià Gibernau, for his ability to contrast ideas and bring dynamism and freshness to an apparently dry and complex narrative.

I would also like to thank the technical team of the company Neurored, which contributed all its experience and professional know-how in the development of advanced digital technologies, and especially its CEO, Ricardo Medem, alma mater of this project, who contributed his valuable experience in the development of digital systems and his strategic vision in the evolution of the transport industry.

I would also like to acknowledge the advisory support of professionals with whom I have long-standing friendships, such as Pedro Coll, Rosa Romero, Jaime Rodrigo de Larrucea and Cristina Coll.

Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the people behind the scenes who make it possible for technical literature to be a channel of access to knowledge. In this case, I am grateful for the care and professionalism with which Mercedes Lara, Núria Gibert, Hèctor Soler and Henry O'Donnell have made it possible for this edition to see the light of day.

David Soler

Foreword

Enric Ticó

President of FETEIA-OLTRA

Spanish Freight Forwarders Federation

The freight forwarder who watched technology go by

The novel L'homme qui regardait passer les trains portrays the life of a shipowner, Kees Popinga, who did not have a particularly happy ending. It is one of the 192 works of one of my favorite writers, the Walloon Georges Simenon, which came to the big screen with the title The man who watched the trains go by.

From Simenon's work we can take away that the mere contemplation of reality does not bring solutions to our businesses. Today, however, freight forwarders have a range of technological solutions, generally complementary to each other, that allow us to do our work reliably, safely and efficiently.

We are still the same as always: the ones in charge of making sure that the goods reach their final destination on time and in good condition. But today, it is impossible to meet this challenge without the help of the resources provided by technological solutions, digitalization, transport and warehouse management systems.

Freight forwarding companies are going through a transition period between the use of manual or office automation tools and the application of advanced digital solutions. While it is true that this is happening in all sectors of industrial activity, for companies involved in the transport chain, digitalizing logistics processes has been progressively incorporated into their business.

Digitalization makes it possible to integrate and process data to automate processes, and have real-time information to optimize operations. In a world characterized by systemic disorder, digitalizing provides us with key indicators and analytics, with new capabilities that can transform our own companies.

Digital tools facilitate collaboration between the agents involved in the transport chain and, in addition, increase the productivity of resources, reduce the time of each process and improve customer satisfaction.

Digitalization is the only tool that allows us to perform predictive analytics on key aspects of supply chains and helps us make decisions to move into the near future.

Challenges in transportation management

We move in a globalized and complex environment, where increasing volatility and uncertainty in the markets make us value our business ecosystem even more. It is therefore essential to to ensure the cohesion of internal teams and to optimize their management. As it is equally essential to strengthen partnerships with customers and suppliers.

In this challenging scenario, moreover, key factors such as the following become particularly relevant:

Automate transportation chain processes.

Systematize the capture and processing of operations data.

Optimize the management and status of transport orders.

Anticipate situations and risks in the supply chain.

Predict market behavior.

Improve decision making.

Implement digitalization

Digitalizing is a strategic action and requires analyzing the alternatives that exist in the technological market. This analysis must adequately define the transformation project, its scope and implementation phases, and specify what the processes will be like in the new scenario.

On the one hand, there are closed software packages that can solve the internal complexity of our business by simply downloading a set of software programs on a computer. These solutions will be useful for a certain period of time, but, in the short or medium term, they may have the disadvantage that requiring a change or customization may be somewhat complicated.

On the other hand, there are also integrated end-to-end management systems for the transportation chain, built on advanced technological bases, developed in the cloud, which allow modular, scalable and customizable configurations, and with the capacity to incorporate new functionalities to meet future requirements.

For a company, an optimal digital structure must incorporate the possibility of making modifications or extensions at its convenience, with the utmost flexibility. Nothing should prevent it from using a purchased application and, in turn, others that it has developed through its own resources or through any technology partner or consultancy.

All this leads us to take into account the desirability of having a suitable technological partner that is easy to work with, so we should also consider whether this partner is close, efficient and agile, as well as technologically advanced.

Characteristics and functions of the systems

As we will see in the pages of this book, the characteristics of a digital transport management system should include the ability to manage shipments in any mode of transport, that it is valid for any type of cargo, and that it can be integrated with other technologies, such as IoT devices or EDI applications, and with other management systems, such as accounting, ERP and CRM systems.

As for the main areas of work, some essential functions should be resolved, such as:

Integral management of transportation operations.

Tracking and tracing of any type of shipment.

Freight rate management of all transportation providers.

With this we will have the ability to meet the needs for the management of customers, suppliers and work teams; demand forecasting and transport order management; route planning and visibility of shipments to their final destination.

A transport management system must also generate and manage all documents related to the operations and, finally, have the ability to collect and process data to provide analytics with information to optimise the operation and performance of transport orders.

The future of transportation management

In one way or another, all of us involved in the transport chain are wondering what the future will look like. Which elements will be the determining factors in their processes.

Among the factors that can be expected to be most relevant, we can highlight the following:

Increased digitalization in all types of organizations. Small, medium or large, they will all implement digital solutions that will enable greater interoperability of internal and external systems.

Transport management systems with data processing to optimize the flow of goods and the capacity of transport equipment.

Artificial intelligence applications and machine learning, which will provide real-time information to be applied in the management of operations.

Automation of the processes, without the intervention of people in the execution, but who will intervene in the