Digital Logistics & Transportation

With digital intralogistics processes, it is possible to map all material flows digitally in your company. On the one hand, this makes it possible to create balanced resource management and workload management and, on the other hand, to control the material flow in the company on the basis of best-practice rules. Furthermore, various possibilities for an ergonomic workplace design for employees (e.g. mobile applications, voice control, etc.) are being offered as well as a framework for the connection of fully automated warehouse solutions.

Challenges with inbound flows, procurement with offshore vendors, reserving and planning transportation (mainly ocean), import procedures, and visibility in transit are some of the trepidations of inbound logistics. For manufacturers, traders, or retailers, inbound logistics are one of the key spent items that need to be optimized and kept in control. One of the KPIs is landed cost calculation.

Commitment to OTIF (On Time, In Full) to your customer is a paramount target, regardless if you operate retail distribution, or outbound to customers processes, you never want to miss a sales opportunity (make to stock industries) or disappoint your customer in delivery time (make to order industries), and at the same time you need to control and manage your freight spend to avoid rushed air or express deliveries that are costly. concircle helps with setting the right strategies and processes on the outbound as well.

Whether you run your own logistics department that plans your inbound/outbound transports, or you rely on 3PL or 4PL to do that for you, your organization should consider digitalizing these planning and execution processes to increase overview, connectivity to your internal systems, to control freight spend and to monitor and manage your 3PL or 4PLs by your own tools.

concircle helps in

• evaluation of TM selection (not only SAP TM),
• planning of rollout and
• design of KPIs to manage your own logistics operations
• with SAP TM best practices, shortcut processes, or non standard road, air or ocean processes.

Visibility

Also referred to as Track & Trace, in visibility it is predominant to gain end-to-end visibility, i.e., which cargo is about to be picked up, which is with a trucker, which is on water, which has arrived or is about to arrive in the next days. Shippers need to realize that cargo (goods) in transit can act as “virtual” inventory and can be counted upon in the production or in the sales process, but can only be counted on, if there is a trustable tool/method to bring this information.

Freight Collaboration

Outside of your company, you need to collaborate with suppliers, forwarders, carriers, brokers, distributors, or customers in a better way (digitalized) or a worse way (manual, ad-hoc) – so choose the better way! As of 2023, the world is running on digital freight platforms, collaborating on Order, Delivery, or Transport (aka Shipment) level, exchanging essential documents and events. Concircle is prepared to help you evaluate platforms, help with KPI setup, and implement and connect these to your back-end ERP.

Traceability & Origin of Goods

Traceability and complete tracking of all products and existing inventories are no longer just a nice-to-have feature for quality management, but an important asset for your customer relationships and often a compliance requirement. At concircle we maintain knowledge and skillset of industry-specific processes and standards (Good Manufacturing practices, GS1, pharma, and automotive requirements) and are ready to help iron out value propositions and generic blueprints. With the SAP SCE portfolio, it is possible to trace inventories across all internal processes (goods receipt, consumption, etc.) as well as across deliveries between plants or end customers. With the use of batches and handling units, fully integrated objects can be used between the S/4 Core and the respective SCE applications. Also, SAP Serialization offers upstream and downstream traceability within processes of Industry 4.0.

Compliance, laws, and regulations, confirming rules and requirements in international trade are getting more and more complex and trickier. You do not want your products to end up with parties using them for terrorist activities, or in the hands of regimes with poor human rights records. At the same time, compliance is not only a risk management but also an opportunity. Are you sure you reached preferential Free trade arrangements in all your export markets? Are you in a position to provide proven custom records when it comes to custom authority coming for an audit into your organization?

Let concircle help in consulting on best practices, rules, and regulations as well as on how to adopt appropriate levels to given trade risk using digital solutions based on SAP GTS.

In addition to your product storage solution (based on SAP EWM), you may in some cases need to handle incoming and outgoing traffic into your premises within profound Yard management. Be agile in knowing where your equipment or trucks are, and what status they are in, and manage your security within the broader Yard/premises flows.