With today’s demand for real-time solutions for the supply chain, counting on a highly customized and responsive Transportation Management System (TMS) is vital.
We jumped into the challenge with a logistics company that wanted a nearshore development team to build a scalable TMS that was cost-effective.
Need Identification: Developing a Transportation Management System
Logistics managers rely on their TMS platform to plan, perform, and optimize order processing, good movements, and deliveries to guarantee that shipments are compliant. So, the more personalized this logistics software, the better performance a company can have, due to this platform’s scalability and potential to adapt to their business needs.
Consequently, this logistics company knew that in order to increase their operations while offering a differentiated value proposition in the market, they would need to have a customized system instead of a pre-made program.
They also understood that this required scalable tools to help them solve problems on a daily basis. This not only optimizing data gathering, but also optimizing their supply chain.
Main Challenges of TMS Implementation
Resistance to Change
With each new technological implementation, there’s a hidden challenge for brokers: the adaptation to the new framework. While our remote developers needed to create a user-friendly experience for their users, the latter needed to understand how to use the new APIs inside the logistics software.
Data Gathering and Customized
While data has a key role in the decision-making process, collecting data for a supply chain strategy takes on even more relevance for real-time response and supply chain optimization. In this case, the challenge was to redesign the forms to fix bugs and implement better practices.
Additionally, the logistics company needed to customize their third-party libraries, templates, and issues to help them optimize their supply chain to meet the users’ capabilities.
Quality Control
This company had some technical issues deriving from the libraries that they were using for their logistics transportation. So, the challenge was to automate and ensure that the quality assurance procedures were being implemented.
Advancio knows that guaranteeing the quality of your supply chain relies on the accessibility and accuracy of your logistics software. That’s why our software development team focus on meeting these standards to achieve outstanding results in the logistics industry.
Solutions for This Logistics Software
By implementing .Net, .Net Core, C#, Azure, Angular, TypeScript, MVC, our remote developers achieved:
Embracing the Change
In this scenario, we highly recommend not underestimating the final user’s experience when considering the needs of the business. The logistics company and our remote team agreed on having training sessions to reduce the resistance to change and make sure the brokers can still use familiar frameworks by implementing integrations into the transportation management system. This space also allowed product owners to clarify concerns and adopt suggestions.
Optimized Forms
Having several events, our software team worked on forms that share a similar database to implement low effort, non-hardcoded dynamic forms.
Automated Quality Control
To solve this problem, the remote developers implemented several open-code integrations or APIs with manual quality assurance controls to provide the QA talent with automated cases within their processes. This would allow them to optimize their processes withing the supply chain.
Results on the TMS Optimization
Faster shipping tender response time
Carriers usually tender with several shippers, so response time is key to obtaining and securing the business. For most logistics companies, tenders are a slow process since there is a lot of information provided by the carrier that the broker needs to access and provide confirmation. This can take up to several days.
With our system, tenders are processed automatically and there is minimal effort required by the broker. This helped the company grow its operations.
High-Skilled Staff Augmentation
Through our partnership with the company, our remote team has grown to meet the needs of the logistics’ business. Our agile and nearshore software development company has demonstrated the quality we are able to deliver while meeting deadlines and supporting logistics companies to increase their scope.
Last Words on Supply Chain Challenges and Custom Logistics Software
Meeting market demands and being able to adapt to success is definitely more achievable with an experienced IT outsourcing partner. The logistics industry will continue evolving and rely more and more on technology. The upcoming recession alongside worldwide production volumes and supply chain changes will make companies invest more in innovation. This includes AI, automation, ML, big data, and sustainability.
But logistics companies will need to switch from general transportation management software to custom ones. That’s where Advancio will be there to help with your operations scalation, supply chain optimization, and competitive advantage.
If you want to know more in detail about how our remote teams can help your business scale and discuss your current strategy, don’t hesitate and reach out to us!
