How Parcel Management Solutions Simplify Part-Truck Logistics

The explosive growth of e-commerce has led to a significant increase in parcels shipped worldwide. In addition, customers now expect fast and reliable delivery of their packages, which has put pressure on logistics companies to up their game. With traditional manual processes of tracking parcels at hand, the entire procedure becomes inefficient and prone to errors, leading to delayed deliveries, numerous customer complaints, and lost business.?

This led to the development of Parcel management solutions (PMS). PMS provides better tracking and visibility, automates processes, and improves delivery times, leading to customer satisfaction and increased efficiency of logistics companies.

These solutions can be a game-changer for small and medium-sized companies, which often transport their shipments in a single truck, along with shipments from different customers, a.k.a Partial Truckload shipping (PTL), freeing up time and resources to focus on other important aspects of the business.?

Key Features of Parcel Management Solutions (PMS)

1. Streamlining communication and coordination

Parcel management solutions (PMS) centralise and organise communication between different parties involved in the transportation process (stakeholders) by providing a single platform to access and share information.?

For example, PMS allows shippers to input their shipping details and preferences, including the package's source, destination, size and weight. The shipment is assigned to a suitable carrier, and the necessary details and instructions required for shipping the shipment are shared between the shipper and carrier for easy communication and workflow.?

PMS provides milestone-based updates and notifications to all parties involved in the transportation process, including shippers, recipients/end consumers. It helps keep everyone informed about the status of shipments and any changes that may occur. After receiving the shipment, the end consumer can also give valuable feedback on the carrier as well as the product.

2. Enhancing Visibility and Tracking

One of the critical features of parcel management solutions is the ability to provide milestone-based updates and notifications on the status of shipments. This feature is particularly useful for businesses that must keep track of their shipments to meet customer expectations and deadlines or track inventory.

Milestone-based tracking is achieved by tracking AWB numbers at various points throughout transportation. The information collected is then transmitted to the parcel management system, which then provides up-to-date information on the location and status of the shipment.

Benefits of Visibility and Tracking

• Improved Customer Satisfaction: Enhanced visibility helps businesses provide better customer service by allowing them to track their shipments and provide updates to customers.?
• Increased Efficiency: The milestone-based tracking helps identify transportation bottlenecks and issues and resolve them on time. Simultaneously reducing the risk of errors by providing accurate and up-to-date information about the location and status of shipments.

3. Reducing Errors and Increasing Efficiency

Parcel management solutions can play a significant role in minimising errors and improving the accuracy and efficiency of shipments by providing a centralised platform for all parties involved in the transportation process.

How does a Centralised Platform help??

1. Automated Data Entry

By providing a centralised platform for data entry, PMS reduces the risk of errors that may occur in manual data entry. The possible errors can be related to addresses, weight and size of packages, and delivery preferences. Therefore the system is generally integrated with the client's ERP systems for automatic and error-free data entry.?

2. Integration with Other Systems

PMS are generally integrated with other systems, such as accounting or inventory management, to ensure that all relevant information is accurately reflected, thereby reducing the risk of missing or outdated information errors.

Future of PMS in the Transportation Industry

The use of PMS is certain to grow in the transportation industry as more businesses seek to optimise their logistics and improve the efficiency of their transportation processes. The increasing use of e-commerce and the need to handle a large volume of small and medium-sized packages is another reason to drive demand as businesses seek ways to manage their shipping needs efficiently and cost-effectively. If you need help choosing the correct shipping option for your business, you can check out our latest blog on Partial truckload and Full truckload shipping.

In addition to the rising demand for these solutions, the capabilities and features of PMS are evolving and improving. For example, with the increase of AL and ML in modern tech, it can be used to consolidate shipments based on weight or destination and improve the accuracy of tracking and updates. Also, a further increased focus on integration with systems like accounting and inventory management to provide a more comprehensive view of the transportation process makes a well-developed centralised platform necessary and need of the moment.?

Optimise Your Operations with Intuparcel

IntuParcel provides a comprehensive solution for PTL parcel management from start to finish. It offers a suite of modules designed to streamline parcel management operations. Here, we'll cover each module in detail.?

1. Transporter Recommendation Module?

This module offers the option to estimate the freight cost and TAT with the shipment information, allowing for maximum flexibility in decision-making. The module's fast analysis capabilities provide users with a wealth of data to make better decisions and comparisons. Ultimately, it enables users to achieve greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness in their parcel shipping operations, ensuring optimal outcomes for their business.?

2. Parcel Visibility?

Intuparcel's centralised platform seamlessly integrates with over 600 courier partners, enabling hassle-free tracking of shipments. Some key dashboard features include a Hawk-Eye view of the entire PTL operation, providing a detailed overview of all shipments in transit for both tech-enabled and non-tech-enabled users.?

It provides milestone-based updates, notifications, and SMS/WhatsApp tracking visibility links for customers against each shipment. Separate logins and views are available with unlimited hierarchy-based logins for the client and transporters, ensuring maximum flexibility and control. There is an analysis of delays, undelivered parcels, and returns allowing for swift action to be taken when necessary. The dashboard also includes automated reports to quickly track key metrics and vendor performance based on region.?

Intuparcel dashboard also provides analysis of various KPIs and actionable insights to optimise operations for tech-enabled vendors. For non-tech carriers, a mobile app is available with logins where they can update milestones manually, which flows seamlessly back to the dashboard for client view.?

The platform includes a manual entry dashboard for local vendor status updates and the capability to track flight cargo through flight number/AWB number for air shipment deliveries, particularly for non-tech-enabled vendors. To enhance our visibility offering, we provide TAT on time/delayed features to handle the delay exceptions efficiently.?

3. E-POD Verification?

With its auto-fetching capabilities, users can access electronic proof of delivery (E-POD) documents directly within the IntuParcel platform. The module allows for quick and easy verification of PODs against actuals, with an ergonomically and user-friendly designed dashboard for faster processing. For non-tech partners, our mobile app has the functionality to upload POD, which will reflect in the dashboard.

Overall, the E-POD Verification module provides significant time savings, with an approximate 50% reduction in time spent on POD verification. The module integrates with carrier vendors and Intugine systems, allowing for direct fetching of PODs and streamlined compliance.

4. Payment Reconciliation?

Intugine's system captures and stores all the relevant contract rules and automates the calculation of freight rates for each consignment using the AWB number. This significantly reduces the time required for payment reconciliation, eliminating the need for manual intervention. Clients can also benefit directly from cost savings by identifying discrepancies between the courier and our system's calculated payment. By addressing these discrepancies, businesses can save significant logistics costs, providing our clients with a direct return on investment.

In addition, the module acts as vendor selection parameters, with custom analytics and reports available for analysing carrier rules.?

5. Remarks Module?

The module enables clients to collect remarks on various aspects such as product, tracking, service, and more. The feedback form is customisable per client requirements, making it easier to capture relevant data. We do this by sending our clients a public tracking link directly to their mobile devices via WhatsApp or text message with the tracking of their shipments and the feedback form. IntuParcel automatically categorises positive and negative remarks, providing valuable insights into areas of improvement. The module also allows downloading remarks reports from the platform, facilitating analysis and strategic decision-making. With analytics on remarks, clients can take targeted actions to improve product and delivery services, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction. However, this module is mostly used by B2C clients to get customer feedback directly.?

6. Analytics

Intugine's Visibility Analytics & Reports provide valuable insights to optimise operations and improve customer service. The platform offers a range of analytics and reports such as actual TAT vs promised TAT, courier vendor performance and delay comparisons, city-wise delay performance, brand-wise performance, and vendor suggestions. For customer service optimisation, Intugine provides product rating analysis, tracking/delivery rating analysis, product remarks count, tracking/delivery remarks count, and the facility to download remarks.?

7. Control Deck

Intugine's Control Deck is a powerful tool that provides clients admin access to configure their masters for IntuParcel. The platform enables clients to add, edit, and configure master transporter information, payment information, lane information, and customer information in a streamlined manner. With selective edit access, clients can ensure data security and eliminate repetitive data entry by configuring masters one-time, giving clients complete control over their data and enabling them to optimise their operations efficiently. Once the client configures any new logic or updates old logic, they can recalculate payments and turnaround times (TAT) independently, without our intervention.

Are you ready to streamline your parcel management operations, achieve greater efficiency, and reduce logistics cost? Don't wait - optimise your operations and enhance customer satisfaction with IntuParcel now!

Authored by?Rakshitha Rai