The Southworth PalletPal® Pallet Inverter is the fast, safe, economical way
to rotate pallet loads. The pressure-adjustable clamp secures loads up to
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• Transferring to or from in-house to shipping pallets or slip sheets
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making work faster, safer, and easier since 1890
TEL: (800) 743-1000 • FAX: (207) 797-4734
SouthworthProducts.com • salesinfo@SouthworthProducts.com
One Minute With No Manual Labor
16-041 Pallet Inverter Ad-DCV.indd 1 2/1/16 9: 42 AMwww.dcvelocity.com SEPTEMBER 2016 DC VELOCITY 37
and midsized companies now have TMS
systems.
Plus, it’s likely they’ll use them in new
and creative ways. In addition to the
basic trio of TMS options—hosting a
TMS application on the user’s premises,
subscribing to an SaaS-based solution, or
partnering with a 3PL—users will increasingly deploy a hybrid model, Wayda said.
Aided by more user-friendly software
platforms, shippers will increasingly mix
and match the functions they manage
themselves and the ones they outsource to
a logistics service provider (LSP).
“On-premise TMS is slowly going away;
there are far too many benefits of an SaaS
solution,” Wayda said. “I see the LSP
hybrid model growing for companies that
have some resources but need additional
transportation heads to help manage certain components and functions.”
ANALYZE THIS!
One notable way a TMS investment can
pay off for small and medium-sized shippers is through data analytics that were
previously available only to the large shippers and 3PLs that could afford to buy
their own TMS software and control the
data they produced.
“A good TMS is a data warehouse,” said
Kewill’s Vertachnik. Whether a business
hosts its TMS on its premises or access-es it from a server in the cloud, it can
squeeze extra profit from the software by
digging into the data it collects.
What makes that possible is the software’s extraordinary tracking ability.
Every time a company manages a shipment via its TMS, the software accumulates mounds of information, recording details about costs, carriers, on-time
performance, billing history, and more.
Over time, patterns and trends begin to
emerge. A savvy user can then mine the
data for opportunities to cut costs and
eliminate waste, Vertachnik said.
Beyond that, the information in the
database can prove valuable in providing
supply chain visibility, supporting nego-
tiations for financial settlements, and, in
the case of cross-border shipments, main-
taining the history required for customs
compliance. Plus, it can provide the basis
for benchmarking delivery performance
against industry averages as well as
by lane, mode, or region.
Faced with this wide array of
options, customers in the increas-
ingly diverse TMS marketplace must
do their homework when picking
the best software for their unique
business.
“You really have to do your
research, whether you’re a shipper,
a carrier, or an LSP,” Vertachnik
said. “But it’s worth it, because your
biggest savings are in transportation
management, through efficiencies,
processes, and cost. And those come
from a 3PL or a TMS.”
