Tag: IT|software|supply chain

Setlog’s Supply Chain Management (SCM) specialists will join forces with Shippeo’s transportation tracking experts to give Setlog customers an optimiszed Carrier Booking module that will enable them to track their shipments in real-time.

In addition, they will receive exact information on the estimated and actual time of arrival of their shipments (Estimated Time of Arrival, ETA, and Actual Time of Arrival, ATA). The substantial advantage is that companies receive an immediate warning in the event of a delivery delay. They can then react to the disruption and adapt the transport processes to the new circumstances, leading to greater predictability in their supply chains.

“For those who buy and trade globally, it’s not enough just to know when a container ship has left port. Predicting the arrival time as accurately as possible and tracking the shipment in real-time is an unbeatable competitive advantage for shippers,” emphasises Christian Trappe, Sales & Business Development Lead at Setlog. The IT company’s first customer to use Shippeo’s solution is household goods specialist Wenko.

Full Transparency

Companies very easily get full transparency on the transport status of their shipment in their day-to-day business. There are several reasons for this:

• Shippeo’s tool can be fully integrated into the OSCA SCM solution via an interface (API) in just a few steps; there is no media break;
• Users have access to 90% of all ocean freight vessels;
• Users benefit from real-time container tracking that goes down to SKU level;
• Shippers remain digitally independent, meaning they can continue to work with their carriers, contract logistics providers, and other partners and do not have to replace their service providers;
• An innovative early warning system is created that allows better control of the inflow to the warehouse. Delays are thus not only avoided, but inventory and demand are also matched and optimised.

According to Trappe, the choice for a partner in real-time transport tracking was made quickly for several reasons: Firstly, Shippeo has the widest reach in this area, with access to more than 150,000 logistics service providers, and at the same time, more than 1,000 TMS and telematics systems are connected to the system. Second, the platform is more mature than any other on the market and delivers the highest ETA accuracy. According to Trappe, Shippeo promises 90% accuracy on delay forecasts up to 12 hours before delivery in the road sector.

32% Increase in Accuracy

To continuously improve its forecasts, the French company not only works to improve data quality, but also relies on advanced technologies such as machine learning. In May last year, Shippeo published figures on the accuracy improvement: “In a window of up to 48 hours before a scheduled delivery, the increase was a remarkable 32%. This was an exciting moment for us and our customers, especially since we have already heard from several customers how impressed they are with our Estimated Time of Arrival forecasts. Among them Renault, one of the largest car manufacturers in the world,” says Anand Medepalli, Chief Product Officer at Shippeo.

For Trappe, the cooperation with Shippeo is an important milestone in enabling companies to establish an inbound supply chain with maximum transparency and real-time visibility: “Our SCM solution OSCA provides our customers with SKU transparency from the selection of the supplier to the control of the ordering process and the receipt of the goods at the distribution centre.”

 

 

Kinaxis Inc., an authority in driving agility for fast, confident decision-making in an unpredictable world, has announced that Jamieson Wellness Inc. is using Kinaxis to bring concurrent planning to its supply chain, supporting company growth and helping to achieve its global business objectives.

Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Jamieson Wellness is Canada’s leading consumer health brand with its portfolio of innovative natural health brands and variety of VMS products under its Youtheory, Progressive, Smart Solutions, Iron Vegan and Precision brands. Jamieson Wellness is leveraging Kinaxis’ RapidResponse platform to gain end-to-end visibility and real-time agility needed to react quickly to any disruption.

“Over the last few years, we’ve seen just how volatile supply chains can be when they aren’t equipped with the right tools. As a leader in our industry, we knew we needed to accelerate our supply chain transformation to continue to thrive,” said Andre Teixeira, VP of Global Supply Chain, Jamieson Wellness Inc. “We aligned with Kinaxis and its concurrent planning technique, and we look forward to working with them to increase our service levels, optimise our inventory and gain manufacturing efficiencies.”

Jamieson finds balance

With Kinaxis, Jamieson Wellness has the ability to find balance in all aspects of the demand and supply plans, by taking into consideration material constraints, production capacity and market volatility. RapidResponse, provides the ability to run multiple simulations and collaborate in real-time giving the agility and flexibility needed to react to market volatility and changes in demand.

“Demand for a product can change drastically, and many companies experienced unpredictable change in demand due to the pandemic and since,” said John Sicard, Kinaxis CEO. “The ability to plan, adapt, and react quickly to changes is what will differentiate industry leaders from their peers. We are thrilled to work with Jamieson Wellness and support its digital supply chain journey and helping them gain a more resilient supply chain.”

 

The war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and high inflation in many countries are presenting supply chain managers with major challenges. Additionally, the always present issues of shortage of skilled labour, supply chain disruptions and cost pressure also prove difficult. Ralf Duester, member of the board of the SCM software specialist Setlog, shows which trends will shape the year 2023.

His statements are based not only on numerous conversations with economic experts and scientists, but also on data from Setlog customers who use the SCM tool OSCA. In the fashion and fast-moving consumer goods sectors alone, these are more than 100 brands, including, for example, Marc O’Polo, Jack Wolfskin, KiK and Wenko.

1. Demand fluctuations force action

In many industrialised countries, companies are bracing themselves for a decline in demand. After years of continuous growth, briefly interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, experts are forecasting a recession. Industry leaders are tightening their focus on their customers – both in the B2C and B2B sector. Because of the high volatility, many companies are putting existing contracts to the test. Flexibility plays a key role in the realignment of contracts. To be able to plan better, close collaboration and trustworthy cooperation between all partners along the supply chain are necessary, which often requires new communication platforms.

Modern IT tools can be used to exchange information, join forces, and make quick decisions in the face of dynamic fluctuations in demand. The prerequisite for new communication channels is the willingness of all players to be transparent. Companies that use software and suitable algorithms to manage demand and supply globally will be one step ahead of their competition. The best strategy is for companies to devise agile approaches to permanently optimise the use of resources and production capacities. Modern demand planning software and business intelligence tools are increasingly important, depending on the industry and product.

2. Collaboration will be implemented

Collaboration is key for industry leaders – both in their businesses as well as their everyday life. This collaboration is playing a big role between internal teams as well as in cross-company supply chains. Everyone has access to data – based on specific authorisations – and exchanges this data on an ongoing basis – usually in real time. This approach improves supply chain efficiency and responsiveness. Data silos hinder successful business. Those who continue to use emails and spreadsheets for communication will find it very difficult to get an overall picture of the current status of an order.

3. Recruiting strategies change

One of the key challenges in the industrialised countries remains the shortage of skilled labour. Demographic changes in countries such as Germany and the US are also aggravating the problem. Leading companies offer attractive conditions to existing and potential staff. Many companies can become even more efficient – for example, by optimising the deployment of drivers with the help of trailer concepts or more decoupled loading times. In the long term, there is no getting around an employment-oriented workforce strategy. The best of the best also differentiate their recruiting approaches – for example, by generation or potential groups such as career changers or

foreign workers. They also offer differentiated retention programs and long-term prospects through flexible working hours, parental leave, and training and development programs. The latter is particularly important for well-established employees in supply chain management, as their tasks become more complex. Cooperation with universities is a good way to attract young talent to the company. In addition, new job requirements are developing in supply chain and logistics, as well as in environmental, social and governance (ESG) areas. Emerging job descriptions such as Data-Driven Planner, Traceability Analyst, Supply Chain Communicator, and Supply Network Innovator address changing requirements that companies must address. The prerequisite for all activities is a contemporary leadership culture that intends to change the understanding of leadership and allows transparent communication – including the involvement of employees’ opinions.

4. Cost awareness increases

Whether it’s new HR strategies or employee retention programs: All these measures cost money. In addition, companies are burdened by increased energy costs, rising interest rates and high inflation. At the same time, consumer spending is falling. Leading companies have already created cost awareness among employees. To achieve this, it is necessary to involve the workforce in the development of sales and costs with open and transparent communication and to develop an awareness of this. With the help of idea exchanges, employees can also be integrated into the process of finding solutions. Another important step is to increase flexibility. The biggest cost drivers must be identified, and action scenarios developed. Remote working, for example, makes it possible to reduce office space and lowers rental costs.

5. Investments in automation projects continue

Even though increased costs put a strain on company cash, many companies are pushing ahead with automation and digitisation projects already underway or initiating new ones. Only those who can keep up with high-performance logistics and the highest service levels lead the market. Planning and allocating budgets for automation, robotics, digitisation, energy savings and staff is money well spent. In intralogistics, for example, manual processes must be automated and digitised to achieve this. Robotics and machine learning also play a major role in order to be fast on one hand and keep error rates to a minimum on the other. IT experts look at digitisation along the entire supply chain and initiate new projects in several chain links at the same time. The use of open-source strategies will play an important role in the future – as will topics such as the digital delivery bill and the digital waybill.

6. Sustainability laws force action

Decarbonisation, social compliance and sustainability are becoming increasingly important for the economy. Following the UN Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheik, consumers, politicians, and business partners are calling on companies to act quickly. The EU is pushing the pace with plans for a supply chain law, as is the United States with the recently enacted Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) or planned legislation in individual states such as New York (New

York Fashion Act). Company representatives are increasingly considering how to implement strategies from the circular economy so that fewer products are destroyed. Businesses that cannot track the path of their products from design to sourcing as well as production to shipping will have a hard time meeting the new requirements of governments, consumer groups and customers. Small companies are (still) excluded from supply chain laws, but often they can only do business with corporations if they comply with all the new regulations. They are required to be able to track and report on the climate and social impacts of their operations.

7. Purchasing and procurement are revamped

The new geopolitical situation shows that, depending on the industry, companies must take individual approaches to purchasing in order to become more resilient. The credo here is: resilience before price. Analyses of car manufacturers, for example, may show that re- or nearshoring of certain products or components makes sense. This may be more expensive, but it makes supply chains more stable. In the consumer goods market, due to enormous cost differences between Europe and the US in comparison to Asia, it makes more sense to keep production as much as possible in the Far East and previous sourcing countries, without looking for nearby factories or even building new ones. The shortage of skilled labour, rising interest rates, high inflation and freight costs that are levelling off at pre-Covid levels are arguments that speak against building or further expanding near- or reshoring in many industries.

Furthermore, when it comes to a company’s bottom line, purchasing, procurement and supply chain management are becoming increasingly important. The reason for this is that opportunities to push through higher prices in the lower and middle goods segment have become rare. Prices are becoming more and more transparent for customers through purchasing platforms. Profits are now generated through procurement – or more precisely – through process optimisation. In addition, companies’ inventory levels are being adjusted due to increased network disruptions – such as war, environmental disasters or strikes. The disruption in global transportation has shown it: For certain industries that depend on a few suppliers, it may be necessary to build up higher safety stocks, avoid single sourcing and generally rethink order processes.

8. Supply networks replace supply chains

The cooperation of companies with purchasing offices, suppliers, factories, test laboratories, technicians, logistics service providers, and dealers is becoming increasingly important. That’s why companies will be looking to further strengthen their business networks in the coming year. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, they have found that their company-centric systems are not working ideally. As a result, leaders across industries are already using tools and platforms that enable secure data sharing, as well as support tight collaborative workflows around forecasting, ordering, production, capacity, delivery, and inventory in real time. As this collaboration, ideal use of data and optimised information flow eliminates errors, delays and inefficiencies, all stakeholders can reduce costs and improve their competitiveness using enterprise networks.

9. ERP silos are being torn down

It’s no secret: small companies rely on one or two in-house systems, some corporations on 20 or more. Even before the pandemic, the inefficiencies of these self-constructed silos were surfacing. Covid-19 only acted as an amplifier. The coexistence of systems artificially added to inventory buffers, caused information delays, and involved either manual labour or high IT costs for interfaces, maintenance, and upgrades. More and more companies are shedding these silos because they can no longer afford the cost, effort, and hassle involved. The best solution is to move supply chain workflows to a collaborative network platform that cuts across all silos and enables both data sharing and true data transfer across production, departments, and companies. Best-of-breed solutions connected via REST API with intelligent IT architecture break down silos and enable collaborative, cross-company working with optimal data sharing.

10. Supply chain managers are using modern technologies

Companies more often realise that thousands of decisions with dozens of parameters have to be made every day. The gut feeling of experienced managers is no longer sufficient. Modern companies rely on new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence to make decisions. Trailblazing companies will automate processes even more and take advantage of AI in prescriptive analytics and autonomous agents to achieve efficiency gains. Open source is increasingly used in supply chain management, especially for standard interfaces. Managers are adopting supply chain software technologies to increase businesses’ resilience and competitiveness. As a result, new automation technologies are changing roles and tasks within the organisation. With new technologies, companies can accelerate planning to delivery, reduce buffers, control processes efficiently and counteract the shortage of skilled workers.

GoFreight has announced that it raised $23m in Series A funding, co-led by Flex Capital and Headline. The round includes participation from LFX Venture Partners, Palm Drive Capital, and existing investors like LA-based Mucker Capital, Cornerstone Ventures, and Red Building Capital.

GoFreight offers an all-in-one cloud-based software that consolidates the complex and meticulous work of freight forwarders into a single software platform solution. GoFreight’s software helps its customers manage the transportation of goods via ocean, air, and land routes with features tailored to freight forwarding. The platform is accessible from any device type, including mobile phones, desktops, and tablets.

“The global freight forwarding industry has grown immensely in the past 10 years but the technology freight forwarders use to run their businesses has not changed,” says Trenton Chen, CEO, and Founder of GoFreight. “Many of these companies still use antiquated ERP systems that were developed over 20 years ago. With GoFreight, a freight forwarder sales rep can turn an inquiry into a quotation that can convert into a new job with just a few clicks.”

GoFreight customers benefit from funding

Freight forwarders can win more bids with a dynamic quotations tool and automate their workflows by removing much of the manual data entry and transference. The software helps freight forwarders track shipments with real-time, carrier, EDI-integrated, container-tracking, visibility–close files with integrated payment processing and accounting–and oversee the efficiency and general health of the business with dashboards containing both out-of-the-box and customizable reporting and analytics. GoFreight will use the new capital for further product advancements and team expansion, specifically around research, development, and customer experience.

“We will expand upon the platform to develop products and features like smart quotations, rate management, and purchase order management,” says Chen. “This will help freight forwarders grow their businesses by providing a more frictionless experience to service the freight forwarder’s end customers. We believe this is the correct path to truly digitalise the freight forwarding industry, and further help the entire global supply chain become more efficient and resilient.”

The Series A funding will also fuel the continued buildout of GoFreight’s customers’ end-user-facing applications to lessen the burden placed on forwarders to manage their customers’ manual requests for information related to shipments and containers. GoFreight will expand its Product and Customer Experience teams with this funding. It follows a high-growth year for GoFreight, which saw its sales more than double.

“When GoFreight began, it had one mission in mind: to revolutionize the Freight Forwarding industry with modern tools designed by industry experts,” says Chen. “It exists for a customer base that has not seen innovation in their tech stack in the past 30 years.”

State-of-the-art tools

GoFreight says it serves its customers by empowering them with state-of-the-art tools and applications in a platform that is easy to implement and boasts a modern user interface for swift adoption. GoFreight’s comprehensive analytics suite with prebuilt dashboards and reports can help busy managers easily oversee their business. Further, the platform is designed to connect all freight management features into one easily accessible, centralized location. Its software makes use of EDI integrations with carriers to reduce repetitive data entry, and easily transpose documents into the platform where they can be sent to freight partners and carriers electronically.

“GoFreight’s cloud software is transforming the freight forwarding process, a $186 billion segment of logistics that is often overlooked,” said Tom Gieselmann, Partner at Headline. “GoFreight’s all-in-one software provides greater transparency to freight movement, allowing freight forwarders to better manage their business, which can range anywhere from 0-1500+ users, end-to-end. This versatility makes the product incredibly impactful, and a big reason behind why we’ve identified them as one of the most promising logistics tech companies on the market.”

 

The right supply chain design is becoming a crucial competitive advantage for companies around the globe, writes Ralf Duester, board member of SCM software provider Setlog.

“Form follows function”: anyone who is into architecture knows the principle which was preached by the so-called German Bauhaus representatives at the beginning of the 20th century. Even better than in architecture, the influence of “form follows function” can be seen in the products developed at the Bauhaus. The use of new materials and technologies opened completely new perspectives in the development of everyday objects – not least from an economic point of view. This is just as true for chairs as it is for desk lamps.

What does lamp design have to do with the design of modern supply chains? To put it bluntly, you could say that the Bauhaus principle figuratively sets the tone for the design of value chains. Why? Because, on one hand, customer demands are increasing – for example, in quick commerce, deliveries are already specified in minutes. On the other hand, the challenges in SCM are increasing because supply chain interruptions are threatening companies more and more often. Accidents, climate change, pandemics and political crises are just some of the many causes.

Supply chain design is the basis for strategic supply chain planning. Proper design thus becomes a key competitive advantage for companies. Managers must therefore provide their teams with robust mechanisms and modern technologies to help them manage supply chain complexity. Tools include scenario planning, cross-functional communication and AI-supported decision-making.

Five factors will play a key role in shaping supply chains in the future:

Aligning the supply chain with the customer: Companies’ focus on what customers want is now more important than ever. Amazon & Co. have led the way. The dilemma: in meeting customer demands, both the timely availability of goods and logistics costs need to be taken into consideration. To find optimal solutions, a customer-centric supply chain must be data-driven.

The end-to-end optimisation of global networks: International supply chains that span across multiple channels and serve different markets are extremely complex. It is no longer possible to manually turn screws. The usage of simulations and machine learning methods supports the optimisation of global networks.

The sustainable design of supply chains: For most companies, sustainability is now a high priority – which is why supply chains are moving more into the focus of management. Sustainable supply chain design is not an option, but an obligation. However, costs cannot be ignored in the decision making either. That’s why modern methods and digital tools need to be used to assess the economic, social and environmental costs of supply chains.

Designing the supply chain against the backdrop of risk: whether it’s Fukushima, Covid or the war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions and uncertainties cannot be prevented. Therefore, new methods for integrating risk and resilience need to be used in supply chain design. Scenario planning is a tool to forge resilient chains. Risks need to be played out at different stages. And models must be developed that enable the highest performance and return on investment (ROI) across a range of scenarios.

The use of software to create transparency: whether inbound logistics, supplier management or CSR: data silos within a company will only be broken down if all departments communicate in a shared tool to which external supply chain partners are also connected – sub-sub-suppliers as well as procurement agencies, technicians, laboratories, or freight forwarders, for example. This is the only way to achieve transparency in the supply chain. Any disruption in the material flow can then be communicated to all players in real time.

Blume Global, one of the leading supply chain technology providers, says it is on track to grow within the European supply chain market with its product offerings and technological advancements.

This year Blume Global expanded its network with new suppliers and customers in Europe. The company is doubling staffing levels in the region to support surging growth projections that will position Blume Global as a leading technology provider in the European market.

“Europe is one of the key markets for us as it forms a big part of the supply chain network. Increasing our employee base across Europe is a part of our overall growth plan as local talent understands the market psyche the best,” said Pervinder Johar, CEO of Blume Global.

“Rising energy prices and inflation, raw material shortages and logistical breakdowns are some of the key disruptions in the European market. With our deep domain knowledge, technology expertise and class-leading digital solutions, we will help customers achieve superior business outcomes and drive transformation in the area.”

Blume’s cloud-first digital operating system is focused on uplifting the entire logistics supply chain ecosystem through visibility, orchestration, and sustainability.

“Offering superior data quality and a network of over 250,000 carriers of all modes around the globe, Blume helps shippers, logistic service providers and carriers to navigate disruptions and create agile plans amid supply chain uncertainty,” said François d’Ivernois, Associate Vice President for Business Development, Blume Global, Europe.

“In Europe we currently have presence in France, Germany, Switzerland, and UK. As a truly global company, being locally present helps us to develop products that best suit each target market.”

The Blume Global team will be attending Gartner Supply Chain Symposium in London from 27 – 29 September 2022 at the Intercontinental London, UK. Blume is all set to enter this exciting phase with the right market analysis and solution, and it will only grow further from here.