Achieving End-to-End Visibility: Why Software Alone May Not Be Enough

Almost all of us have had the opportunity to track an eCommerce order from the warehouse to our homes. Some may have even followed the progress of our pizza order as it moved from preparation through baking and delivery.

Those personal experiences with track-and-trace technology have translated into expectations for commercial freight that shippers are striving to meet. But tracking freight is different than tracking an eCommerce package or a pizza order. Today’s large shippers are moving hundreds of shipments a day across multiple modes using a broad and dynamic network of carriers.

In addition, with commercial freight, just knowing where a shipment is often isn’t enough. Shipments that don’t arrive when expected – even if the shipper understands why – can create production delays on the inbound side and jeopardize customer relationships for outbound shipments.

In commercial freight, the ultimate goal of visibility is predictability. That requires applying event management profiling to visibility data to proactively mitigate the impact of events that can delay shipments.

The Role of Software Tools

There are several good software tools available on the market that aggregate transportation event data from multiple carriers to enable visibility. For many enterprises these tools represent an important component of a visibility solution, but by themselves won’t deliver on the full benefits that could be realized from the data they are collecting.

One challenge is that there are gaps in the carriers each tool integrates with. Some carriers, particularly smaller ones, don’t have the technical resources to integrate with multiple visibility platforms and may not be incentivized to do so in today’s capacity constrained market. They’ll typically provide event data through their website, requiring the shipper to figure out a way to collect that data and integrate it with their visibility platform – or live with some gaps in the event data they receive.

More significantly, these tools only provide the event data; it’s up to the user to analyze that data to identify exceptions that indicate potential problems with specific shipments and develop plans to address these exceptions. Few organizations have the resources to manage event data in ways that create a positive impact on transportation KPIs.

Putting Together a Complete Solution

Achieving a level of visibility that can meet customer expectations and drive improvements in KPIs requires a multi-tiered approach to transportation event management. At DHL Supply Chain, we deliver this through our control tower solution.

The control tower functions as a hub for monitoring, evaluating and directing activities across the supply chain, including aggregating, analyzing and reacting to transportation events. Through the control tower, we integrate event data from multiple visibility platforms, direct links to carrier websites using robotic process automation and our own TNet system. TNet is a tool developed by DHL to extend and enhance our ability to integrate with carriers. Together these systems enable complete and accurate visibility into all shipment events, regardless of carrier and mode.

The control tower also brings a high degree of transportation expertise to event management. Dedicated transportation specialists use the aggregate event data to quickly identify exceptions that put scheduled deliveries at risk and, when warranted, intervene with adjustments to routes or carriers to mitigate the impact. What’s more, they look for trends in exceptions to determine the “why” behind them and use the findings to refine transportation strategies and select and negotiate with carriers. Risk management tools can also be employed to proactively plan for and respond to disruptions in transportation networks resulting from severe weather, political instability, pandemics and other events.

DHL Supply Chain’s control tower solution was recently employed to manage the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine distribution is inherently complex in any circumstance, but the temperature requirements of two of the three approved vaccines introduced an additional set of challenges. Ensuring the vaccines remain at the appropriate temperatures requires receivers at the final destination to be ready for immediate unloading. The DHL control tower solution provides the visibility and predictability required for a seamless drop-off protocol, helping ensure the integrity of vaccine doses.

Extending the Definition of End-to-End

When visibility platforms use the term “end-to-end” they are referring to visibility from the point of shipment to the point of delivery. While that’s undoubtedly valuable, at DHL Supply Chain, we prefer a broader definition.

Because we manage warehousing and transportation, we understand the value of tracking materials across the supply chain. That’s why we define the front “end” of our end-to-end visibility solution as the order originating in the warehouse.

Our MySupplyChain platform integrates relevant transportation event data with data from the warehouse management system (WMS) and packaging platform to enable our customers to track material flows from order origination through delivery. By providing a dashboard view of material flows, supported by proactive event management, MySupplyChain relieves DHL customers from the burden of data analytics while providing easy access to the data they care about most.

Visibility platforms have become valuable tools in managing transportation, but they don’t represent a complete solution. Using a control tower solution closes the gaps in single platform
solutions while adding the continuous monitoring and exception management that is essential to achieving predictability in today’s complex transportation networks.

To learn how DHL Supply Chain can help you achieve greater end-to-end visibility by managing your transportation and warehouse operations, visit: http://app.supplychain.dhl.com/e/er?s=1897772577&lid=8048.

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