How good are you?

I have known that when we consider logistics, there are tens of items should be checked with the process! Thank you for summarizing those of the tips.??

Hi Peter, great survey results. Thanks for opening up opportunities to speak at TPM. We look forward to attending TPM in 2018. I would like to nominate Xeneta www.xeneta.com to talk about how we can help with #5 and/or #8 from the procurement side. The ocean freight rate data intelligence in Xeneta gives cargo buyers procurement and SCM professionals real-time insight where the data can be used to answer many questions plaguing supplier negotiations: best supplier to ship with, current market dynamics that can drive contracting types and what rates to contract with to secure cargo is not rolled and much more. We can run a live demo of our platform with real-time data and explain real-life scenarios facing SCM and procurement cargo buyers based on the above. Thanks again and happy holidays! Katherine Barrios

All very true pain points. Nice post

Thanks John, which of the specific ones would you see Log-Net speaking to? feel free to email me if you want, many thanks

Hi Peter, Thank you for your post and opportunity to discuss these pain points. We, LOG-NET, Inc. ( https://www.LOG-NET.com), would welcome the chance to present some of our capability around these pain points. We might also be able to talk to some of our Carrier, 3PL and BCO partners to participate to both validate the pain points and discuss carrier and provider hurdles to addressing these issue. Specifically the following are some of the solution specifics we work on and their functional area in the LOG-NET platform. LOG-NET is a visibility, forecasting and execution platform that operates across and within all modes and facilities. Below are 8 functional areas of the system that help mitigate the pain points outlined in your post. Best Regards, John A)LOG-NET TRANSIT PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT: Artificial Intelligence in Visibility addresses and supplements the solution of many of the major pain points; 1-LOG-NET improves continuous ETA updates by creating much more granular milestones and accepting updates from many participants and feeding all this in to LOG-NET’s, AI based, Transit Plan engine. AI is an enabling technology of LOG-NET’s multi-party event updates. Since AI does the tallying and analysis and not people the more parties and events the better the ETA. 5-Real time visibility. As noted in 1 AI is key to enabling a synthesized view of shipments from multiple parties. AI evaluates update credibility and frequency constantly, LOG-NET’s dynamic event evaluation constantly re-evaluates the appropriate events for every movement. Transit plan versions allow for assessment of what’s been changing. This generates millions of plan version as events constantly change the flow of goods but this is evaluated by the machine and not people. More information means more granularity and KPI’s constantly being created and evaluated for every node and transit in all movements. 6-Schedule changes and lead time management. LOG-NET’s Transit Plan engine constantly evaluates lead times with review and updates back to purchasing and merchandising automatically. LOG-NET’s transit plan management also enables route risk rating so there is an understanding of the reliability of a specific route caused by carrier, terminal, product type, density or other issues. AI based analysis looks at both the carrier schedule (one of the least risky parts of the movement there being plenty of room on the ocean at this point) and all terminal operating events (the high risk areas of the network). 9-Disruption at point X and determining plan B is supported in LOG-NET by constantly looking downstream at impacts and options. AI at LOG-NET is also great at classifying the move and what is in the box and its needs when deciding on the best course of action. LOG-NET also looks upstream evaluating upstream events that are deterministic in causing the downstream flow disruptions. 11-With AI demurrage and detention become an asset. Truth be told most movements are early. AI in LOG-NET will evaluate far enough in advance to signal port draymen to pick-up as free time expires for early goods while prioritizing late or low inventory items. LOG-NET’s dynamic flow management will also advise DC’s when to unload goods for immediate unloading if urgent or just before detention initiates. These flow models give final movement decisions to the party on the ground executing in case something happens to a load that gets stuck for whatever reason it doesn’t stop the queue of movements. 13 - Carrier schedule discrepancies are more widespread than reported. This neuters a lot of on-line booking options, particularly when trying to provide long term booking forecasts. LOG-NET tries to leverage the carrier’s strengths. LOG-NET adds flexibility to book to strings instead of vessels when appropriate or work with carriers enabling web service with REST capability to integrate better schedules. LOG-NET also offers internal schedule management to make it easy to add and maintain schedules based on frequency, port rotation, etc. LOG-NET also schedules across modes, through transloading and carriers enabling multi-modal bookings to any carrier and multiple modes. LOG-NET also has statistical engines determining the variability of schedules and terminal services in order to evaluate the risk associated with each. In LOG-NET, nodes beyond the carrier transit include suppliers, transload, motor movement, gate turn time, DC unloading and more. 16- At LOG-NET we address intermodal reliability with a combination of LOG-NET Transit Plan AI and LOG-NET’s multi-party event updates. Reporting from multiple parties will increase the percentage of visibility completeness while the AI will evaluate the transit better. For example the machine will be able to tell that if you departed the port on a Wednesday instead of Monday you are not on the first train and may be in freight service instead of through stacktrain service. It will give the move a much better ETA because it is extremely difficult for a person to remember and apply the conditions. B) LOG-NET TRANSIT PLANNING AND PRIORITY FLOW MANAGEMENT: Combining Artificial Intelligence in Visibility with an effective prioritization program (everybody can’t be the number one priority); 4-LOG-NET facilitates dealing with port congestion by combining the data analytics that LOG-NET’s, AI based, Transit Plan engine is creating with LOG-NET’s automated priority and flow management. AI evaluates the riskiness of a specific day of week, location, weight, etc. to determine the probable variance in the targeted event occurrence. Priority evaluates timeliness and stock levels to determine the urgency of the movement. Flow assigns service providers KPIs for the specific moves to optimize priority timing while minimizing storage and detention related expenses. In combination these factors assist in evaluating the best period to process a pick-up and unload it. 12-Terminal appointments being days out are facilitated in LOG-NET by combing the information noted in the response to 4 with flow windows the carrier can opt in to since they will have the best information on final execution while being aided by the AI on making that decision. LOG-NET assists in avoiding the delays by providing the best windows that accomplish the desired delivery most efficiently. Particularly if the system is instruction to hold goods to avoid DC congestion. 7-Minimizing the impact of port delivery even when there is congestion in New York or LA is facilitated the same way as 12 when dealing with congestion. In LOG-NET we use AI to assist in the execution that is very complex when congestion, additional handling fees and Customs/Freight releases are involved. LOG-NET integrates customs and terminal status in this process to enable the best outcome. A key is that LOG-NET lets the draymen quarterback when the load hits the red zone with AI and automated integrations from carriers, terminals and Customs Brokers supporting the execution. C) LOG-NET JOB MANAGEMENT: LOG-NET’s Autonomous Logistics Initiative. 15-LOG-NET supports pre-booking across all modes and carriers as a core feature of its order management and job management areas. LOG-NET also supports booking through movements across pick-up, consolidation, main carriage, de-consolidation and distribution. Particularly with enhanced e-commerce clients we are seeing more and more high speed distribution from factory to parcel customer delivery with sales order allocation and cartonization delayed to near end of production and managed by the LOG-NET platform. D) LOG-NET CARRIER FORECASTING 14-Centralized allocation from carriers is facilitated with LOG-NET by converting order and movement request in to carrier allocations that can project with detail ten to twelve weeks in to the future. LOG-NET espouses using its capability to help the carrier understand the forecast in a format familiar to them that is accurate. Constantly hitting your network numbers 12 weeks out will have most carriers willing to centralize and route your estimates so that your equipment can be allocated locally. Particularly if your forecasts are reliable and you become a trusted partner. Getting this correct may mean asking merchants and/or planners to be involved in moving ship dates to smooth surges around things like black Friday or lunar new year to avoid everything being produced for the last ship. 12 weeks out normally gives you this time to adjust. E) LOG-NET SERVICE CONTRACT AND EXCEPTION MANAGEMENT 8-LOG-NET has a two part approach to help mitigate the impact of being rolled even when you have a contract. Part one is the system can tag each booking that is rolled or rejected with an exception as to the amount of cargo rolled or rejected. Part two is a clause in your contract that says you can deduct 2 FEU from your volume commitment for every FEU they roll. This way when peak season ends you can place twice the cargo they would have received with the carrier that did not roll you and still provides you good rates. The LOG-NET exception report can be used to verify your claimed service failures. F) LOG-NET TRANSLOAD MANAGEMENT AND ONLINE SHIPPING LABEL MANAGEMENT 17-LOG-NET supports logistics execution at extremely granular levels of detail. By tracking below the BL to the PO’s and individual cartons and pieces we are able to trace goods through the transloading process with LOG-NET’s transload features. We already have transload specific integration with many of the largest transloaders that supports LOG-NET’s capability. We also have web screens available for smaller transloaders that can not support the technical requirements of transload processing. LOG-NET also supports the automated creation of carton labels, packing lists and invoices to assist the supplier, carriers and transloaders in automating their processes. G) LOG-NET SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT, EDI COMPLIANCE AND TRADING PARTNER INTEGRATION 3-LOG-NET has seen a tremendous improvement in general within the carrier community supporting all aspects of digital activities. LOG-NET has invested over ten years in maturing its EDI compliance and Trading Partner integration teams. We work daily with all providers to improve digital processing to minimize the need to contact customer service and to expedite resolution when necessary. Our EDI compliance team is constantly reviewing data cleanliness to scrub out false positives of issues so that LOG-NET trading partner compliance is acting on actionable details and not failed integration or processing. We also recommend a stronger ecosystem with supplier/shipper integration to LOG-NET to better spot issues that will cause carrier problems downstream. This helps the community to play to the strengths of the carrier. 2-To mitigate lack of visibility to rolled cargo or missed sailings we recommend leveraging LOG-NET’s supplier/shipper and/or forwarder/3PL integration. Upstream milestones will enable visibility and execution leading to the main carriage activities as well as the exceptions in this phase of processing. 10. In order to mitigate high risk issues due to shifting cargo ready dates we also recommend LOG-NET’s supplier and/or forwarder integration. If the shipper or forwarder is smaller LOG-NET’s platform supports web processing. LOG-NET AI based Transit Planning can also analyze order confirmation, negotiation, production and packing process to better spot and anticipate missed cargo ready dates.